Sonic Unveiled
by donnathewriter
Summary: Dark Gaia defeated Sonic, and Eggman built an empire. Ten years later, the world cracks again, and Sonic must make things right. But everyone's changed-including Chip, Eggman, and Sonic himself. Can Sonic find himself again and restore the world?
1. Chapter 0: Missing the Mark

Sonic Unveiled

Author's Note:

First off, my apologies to Sega for the use of their characters, who have inspired me.

Secondly, I must note that this is a deconstructionist response to Sonic Unleashed. It is set in an alternate universe where Sonic lost, and it lets me look at some of the assumptions behind SU. If you don't like deconstruction, you may want to turn back.

Thirdly, the story is done and will be re-posted by chapter as I take one final look at everything. Not as much as I liked though; Bryan talked me into having a little more confidence in myself.

Spoiler Alerts:

Sonic Unleashed (necessary to understand the story)  
Sonic and the Secret Rings  
Sonic and the Black Knight  
Sonic the Hedgehog 2006  
Shadow the Hedgehog  
Sonic Adventure 2  
Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Content Warnings:

Deconstruction/Wreck Fic  
Non-fatal, bloody violence  
Fatal violence, no body shown  
Mild sexual themes  
Prominent and Background Het Pairings (ShadAmy, Sonamy, Knuxouge, Eggnilla, various Tails pairings)  
Background Slash Pairing and moderate slash subtext (Vecpio, jokes about various male characters' sexuality)  
Mild to Moderate Swearing. Shadow territory.

Apologies to:  
Star Wars  
Neon Genesis Evangelion  
Wicked  
Megamind  
Power Rangers  
Inception  
TV Tropes

Many thanks to my betas:  
* One who probably wishes to remain anonymous.  
* Ben, the best boyfriend in the world  
* Ryan Duran  
* Bryan, the best cousin in the world

* * *

Chapter 0: Missing the Mark

He took a breath in the stifling heat, and focused.

Sonic looked around him, trying to get a view of the situation. In the distance he could see glistening, glowing eyes of green, seven; one for every emerald. Near him, at his feet and his sides, were the walls of the Gaia Temple of Apotos, shifted sideways and a stark white against the murky inside of the Earth. Between were chunks of rocks Dark Gaia tried to pelt him with, which were mostly hitting Chip—or should he say, Light Gaia—instead, hacking away at his temple armor.

Sonic ran off the edge and closed his eyes, reaching out through the emeralds into the fabric of space. Little bubbles in the world began to appear in his mind, little places where space or gravity or time wavered. He reached into one, leapt into it, shooting himself forward toward the beast's eye. But the end of the little wormhole became apparent, and he dodged left to meet the next one. Another passed and he jumped up, only to find it had really been a foot ahead.

"What? No!" He screamed.

"Sonic!" Chip's voice called from far away.

He felt himself begin to fall, out of momentum and out of wormhole. Fighting panic, he closed his eyes again and tried to get to another bubble in the foam of the universe, but he was falling too fast, and he was too weak. He asked himself what was wrong with himself, why he couldn't chaos control like that time on the ARK, and only just came to the answer that he was exhausted when he felt the heat beginning to sear his flesh. As the burning intensified, he thought of all the people on the surface depending on him, hoping they would save him one more time, and the awful world they'd have to live in if Dark Gaia were allowed to win.

The bubbles in space began to spin around him and he felt himself stop moving. As the orange of his eyelids became black, he heard Chip whisper softly, "Live, Sonic."

* * *

He gently pulled the page from her desk and pulled it close to his face.

"Hey! You give that back, Knuckles!" She shouted, standing.

"Your Highness." He walked away from the desk, his red locks swishing with movement, tracing his eyes over the page.

"I don't make you call me Doctor Rose! And that's personal! I was writing it!"

"What's he going to think when he comes back from the dead and sees how wrong you got this?" Knuckles turned, glancing at her over the paper.

"I'm trying to reconstruct what happened for clues as to how to find him." Dr. Rose stood up. "We know Sonic's friend Chip was Light Gaia, it explains the way he was able to help at the temples. We know the temples all disappeared…"

"But a mech battle? You've been hanging around the Emperor and Dr. Prower way too much." He walked over to her, locking eyes, his face pulling into a gentle grin with teeth just a hint too sharp. Knuckles folded the papers delicately in his gloved hands. Then he took one of Amy's hands and turned it slightly, placing the papers in it.

She looked into his eyes, the world seeming to spin around her as if she were young again. It seemed like it had been so long since anyone had looked her in the eye besides Shadow; was that what Knuckles was getting at? No, Knuckles loved his Queen, and she had half a mind he'd take Sonic over either of them. But there was a look of such light in his eyes, such warmth, that she felt her knees quake, trying not to remember a time when everyone looked like that.

"I miss him so much, Amy," His violet eyes seemed almost to beg her.

"I do too."

"You help me believe he's…" Knuckles gulped. "He's really out there. Saving kids and fighting demons. I just wish he'd tell us."

Amy took Knuckles clawed fingers in her other hand. "And we'll kick his butt for not telling us when we find him. After we hug him to death."

He chuckled and pulled her into a hug, holding her tightly, protectively. "I knew you'd cheer me up. We… We're having a little banquet in the Hidden Palace to celebrate Rouge's successful theft of the last Chaos Emerald. Not the one Eggman's having, a personal one, just old friends. Please bring Shadow and his raisin cookies."

Amy shoved Knuckles away playfully. "So that's what this is about! I'm busy with my research—the projected date when the split was supposed to happen is in a few weeks—but I'll send Shadow. Eggman can make do with a robotic guard for a li_t_tle while."

* * *

As the music played and the people mingled, he sat on his throne and smiled.

Emperor Ivo Robotnik turned and smiled at his Empress, who smiled back at him, jewels glittering in her long, orange ears. Some of the media had begun to complain about excesses, but the sub-industrial grade diamonds had to go somewhere, didn't they? He'd just shut them down if they kept it up.

"I'm the Emperor," he murmured to himself. "I can do that."

"Do what, father?"

He glanced to his other side, to Princess Cream, who was looking at him with great interest. She had grown up quite nicely, he thought, much like her mother, though she refused any gems for her long ears. He respected that; he was sure that she would eventually use her frugality and reputation to depose him. She looked at him with inquisitive orange eyes, an almost sneering arrogance in them that both sickened and impressed him. One side of her face curled up on itself, a grin.

His bodyguard, standing nearby, wrinkled up his little brow and crossed his thick arms, clawtips tracing one of his red stripes like they were a wound.

"This!" he announced, standing. "Ladies and Gentlemen, now that we've all had something to eat, why don't we check out my latest invention!" He hopped down from his throne. "My latest Dark Gaia suppressor model is nearly complete, and now has an effective range of a mile!"

He saw Cream roll her eyes, and silently invited her to do a better job.

* * *

He stood on the hill waiting.

It was Reunion Day, the day Holoska rejoined the rest of the planet and the cracks disappeared. He couldn't be sure why they celebrated it, given that the world all but a few days later, but he couldn't fault them. Always need a reason to celebrate, he decided. Even when things are bad, even when they can't get worse and then they do, people need to look on the bright side. Just smile, or something.

He tried to smile and scratched his lip.

"I've had ten years to get used to these teeth," he scolded himself.

He got down on all fours and waited, watching, reflecting on the time past. Wondering about people he knew, even though he heard about most of them on the news. All but the one he needed. The one who could tell him what happened…

Then he saw what he had been waiting for. A little shape sliding down the hill, straight toward the road below. Every year it happened, and every year at least one of them was hit or hurt or killed. It had happened before Dark Gaia came, of course, but less often, and less deaths then. But there would be none this year.

He bolted down the hill, pulling himself with his arms and pushing with his legs. He began to slide toward the bottom and reached out one arm, stretching until he caught hold of the lanky boy, who looked at him with indignation, unnatural violet color to eyes that should have been brown—his parents' were. As they neared the highway, the cloaked figure reached his other arm, extending it by double to reach the cliff above. He pulled his arm in, pushed the boy onto the cliff, and climbed up after him.

"I won't always be there to save you."

The little man in the cloak turned and walked away.


	2. Chapter 1: Savannah Sympathy

Chapter 1: Savannah Sympathy

Author's Note: I imagined the Temple for Mazuri/Apotos being centrally located between the two and accessible from both, if that helps. Also, it's obvious at this point, I played the Wii version. Enjoy.

* * *

They were sleeping when it happened.

It was on opposite sides of the world, and the times were different. In some places it was a dark purple day, in others, the blackest night. But each of them was sleeping.

On the night side, the shaking woke up the Empress, and she woke up the Emperor to show him the moon, glowing out the window for the first time in a decade. The Island King woke his wife, who had fallen asleep at the desk pouring over a trade agreement with the Emperor, to show her the same. The Professor leapt up from bed at the beginning of the quake, leaving a groggy guard reaching for his wife's slender waist absently, oblivious. An Engineer staying in one part of the castle raced to the Princess' room and wrapped his arms and tail around her, babbling about how they were finally free, and maybe now he would come back.

* * *

On the day side, the quake brought the adventurer's attention to a dazzling sun in the high noon sky, and the sun brought to him a searing pain. He stood up and staggered out of the tree in which he'd been sleeping, stretching his arms to catch himself and finding they wouldn't stretch. By the time he reached the bottom he was curled into a ball, spinning and dizzy. He retched a few times before the shifting of his form brought him to rest on top of a tiny little creature with waxy wings.

He coughed and shuddered as he rolled over, trying to get away from the pressure on his back and the churning of his stomach.

"Where am I? What happened?" For a moment he thought it might all have been a bad dream, lying there in the long grass, sun beating on his suddenly naked face. He could see a gazelle considering him oddly. He glared at it and growled, "Haven't you ever seen a hedgehog before, lady?"

Apparently not one of his own kind, it leaped off wordlessly. He took stock of himself, looking at his thin arms, his naked, round hands, his solid blue body. He started to say, "So it was just a dream," until he looked at his feet, now in square red and white boots he'd never have worn before with little spikes on the toes. The cloak tied around his neck hung loose enough to fall over a shoulder and he could feel a stiffness in his joints he didn't recognize, even from before.

"What happened?"

The familiarity of the voice lead him to turn awkwardly, rapidly at first, until he remembered that like this his spine was no longer that flexible backward. As he cringed, he noted a little blue-violet creature lying in the circle in the grass, moaning.

"Chip? Long time, no see."

A pair of little green eyes glanced at him over the bent grass. "Chip? Who's that? He sounds tasty. Do I know you?"

"Not this again?"

"Not what again?" He climbed out of the little crater and floated into the air. His wings were blue now, like an insect's, veined and translucent, and a pair of little blue horns sat on his head instead of ears. The green orb once on his collar was replaced with a choker of gold and a pink gem, but Sonic found he still had his silver and green memento on his own wrist. He glanced at Chip's spiky horns, sharp claws, pointed toes, new prehensile, slithering tail of violet the same as the rest of him. Could it be? Outwardly this creature had little in common with the fluffy maroon and white, golden-eyed friend he made before.

"Did you lose your memory? Are you the same? Or are you even…" He picked the little guy up. "But I know your voice. You're my friend Chip. Light Gaia. And we've got work to do, and chocolate to eat. Come on."

"Ooh, Chocolate." Chip settled into his arms. "What's chocolate?"

* * *

She looked around the table as she sat down, spreading her papers around her. She pulled her computer from a pocket and began to type into it.

Knuckles watched Amy through the screen, admiringly. He had never had a romantic interest in her, but he was impressed at the woman she'd become… She sat there, long spines now free of their old headband, reading glasses sitting neatly on her nose. She now wore a collared vest with pockets over a slimmer version of her old red dress. He could scarcely believe the clingy, gaudy little girl she'd been the last time they had both seen Sonic. He asked himself, have I grown as much as she has? Am I ready for him to be back?

The different screens showed the others looking on. Princess Cream, wearing a modest clip instead of her tiara, clad in a warm pink sweater instead of her usual gowns, staring ahead blankly in disbelief, sat next to a nervous-looking fox in a labcoat and goggles. At their sides sat a trio: An old crocodile in a gold chain, a deep violet chameleon in spikes, and a snarling teenage bee in an aviator cap. On another monitor stood a portly fellow in a flowing robe that Knuckles had grown to love and hate, and at his side, a black, furry figure with sharp teeth and claws. Lastly was a single emerald hawk, wearing goggles and a white robe.

"Thank you all for coming, or tuning in," Amy noted, looking at the camera in front of her over her glasses. "For the record, I am Dr. Amy Rose. I'm a graduate of the University of Spagonia's Gaia studies program, and an associate at the University of Eggmanland, Station Square campus. I am also the Advisor to the Emperor on Gaia Studies. I'd like everyone else to introduce themselves, for the record."

The human spoke next, pushing his blue glasses up on his beakish nose. "I am Dr. Ivo J. Robotnik, Emperor of Eggmanland and the lead scientist on Project Reflection." He grinned oddly, and Knuckles waited a second for the rest, only to find nothing came.

"My name is Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog. I am the ultimate life form," the snarling black beast noted cooly, "And my cousin the Emperor's chief guard. I am also the slayer of Black Doom and a… close genetic match to the late Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm here to answer questions about the effects of Dark Gaia on his body."

"Finally," Rouge muttered at Knuckles' side, "A purpose statement." He glanced at his wife and ran a claw through her long, white hair, shushing her quietly.

The rabbit spoke next. "My name is Cream the Rabbit, and I'm the Crown Princess of the Eggman Empire. I helped Sonic and Dr. Rose save the world in the past and I'm trained in diplomacy."Knuckles noticed that she left out all the combat training she'd received.

"I'm Dr. Miles Prower," her neighbor added, pushing up his goggles. "Chief Engineer of the Eggman Empire, inventor of the artificial chaos emerald, and transportation director of Project Reflection. I also saved the world with the others."

The crocodile cleared his throat. "I'm Vector, and this is Espio and Charmy. We are Team Chaotix, Imperial Inquisitors for the Eggman Empire. We were part of the defense against Metal Sonic along with just about everyone else here."

The last figure on the screen spoke, uncomfortable and shrill. "My name is Jet the Hawk. I participated in a couple of world-saving adventures and I'm now the Eggman Empire's ambassador to Shamar. I am also the current leader of the Babylon Rogues."

Then it was Knuckles' turn. "I'm King Knuckles, Guardian and ruler of the Kingdom of Angel Island. I served alongside Sonic and Eggman against many threats, and I now run one of our last natural sanctuaries against Dark Gaia infection."

"And I'm Rouge," his wife added, leaning into the camera so as to provide a glance down her low, black dress. "Princess Consort of Angel Island and Ambassador to the Eggman Empire. I was a former agent for the government of the United Federation , and am a world-class jewel thief. I acquired all the emeralds for this project and I'll be running the Island in Knuxie's stead when he goes off for his part of this."

There was a pause, and then Amy said. "Right." She cleared her throat. "We have called his meeting because of what happened. Ten years ago, a modified version of the Eclipse Cannon was activated, splitting the earth 's crust into seven pieces and unleashing a strange energy creature called Dark Gaia. Sonic the Hedgehog, who had attempted to stop this, along with an amnesiac fairy creature named Chip, travelled the world restoring chaos emeralds. The shattering of the planet had drained the emeralds, and Chip somehow possessed the ability to restore them in the temples. We believe that Chip was an incarnation of Light Gaia, Dark Gaia's opposite and opponent."

Knuckles jotted a note with a time stamp on a piece of paper, "Rose omits mention of Eggman's responsibility for incident."

"When each emerald was restored, the continent at which it was restored sunk back to its former elevation and rejoined the others. After the last emerald was restored, Chip, Sonic, Eggman, and Ergo the Robot descended into the Earth. Eggman was ejected by a great creature he identified as Dark Gaia along with Ergo, but Sonic never emerged. Anyone who sees this in our lifetimes knows what happened next, but I think it's important we explain for posterity. At this point, The world was enveloped in a violet darkness, and shortly thereafter, the possessions, infections, and mutations that had begun with the splitting of the continents intensified. Now an estimated 50% of the world's population are showing signs of having been changed by Dark Gaia Force."

"I'm an example of that," Shadow noted. "My mutation is identical to Sonic's, though, because I was on a mission far from a fault line, it took months to complete. The genetic material Sonic and I share via a common ancestor predisposes us to easy transformation, be it into super form, or this, what he dubbed the werehog."

"Note the sharpened teeth and claws, fur growth, blue-shift in coloration, and increased size. Also, stretching limbs," Eggman noted. Knuckles noticed a slight sneer on Amy's face at that as she flashed a set of genetic scans at the camera. He fought a chuckle, wondering whether those two would ever outright fight for attention.

Amy stood up, and whoever was manning the camera, probably Cubot, followed her around the table. "Six hours ago, an earthquake rocked the world, and satellite data indicates that the world has split again. This was predicted to happen within a window of this date plus or minus three years, based on the Gaia Manuscripts. It would seem that the mistake ten years prior to this date had no effect on the cycle. Reports are rolling in of avian and humanoid figures made of reddish light with green accents, or green with red accents, attacking near the fault lines. The purple cloud around the planet has disappeared, and now daylight and moonlight are at pre-Gaia levels."

"To restore the earth to its former glory," Eggman butted in, "We are sending an individual to each rebuilt Gaia temple on each of the seven land plates to restore an emerald. Upon restoration of the final emerald, we will send a combat force in case the defeat of Dark Gaia is necessary to restore the world."

"Each of you have your assignments. For security's sake, we are not revealing which of you are responsible for which Emerald—any Dark Gaia possessed individual might be compelled to stop you. I wish you all the best of luck." Amy picked up her folder. "I'm going to go prepare transport for the Mazuri team."

Knuckles ended the transmission, taking his cue. He found it amusing that they were trying so hard to obscure what was really happening, when Eggman was the one they had to deceive.

"Gliding, or parachuting, honey?" Rouge asked.

"Parachuting." He stood.

"Why don't you glide anymore?" She wrapped an arm around his waist, looking up at him with concern.

"You can fly. How do I beat that?" He smiled weakly, and she returned it in response to the lie.

"We'll be over the drop point in twenty minutes."

* * *

The sounds of city bustled around them as they sat in the café. Sonic glanced over his companion's head at the large, white bridge crossing over the straight between Mazuri and Apotos. He had seen it many times, but not in a decade had he seen it glisten in the noon sunlight. Nor had Chip. Feathery, almost, instead of fuzzy, with veiny blue wings and a blue-violet color. Horns for ears. Sonic couldn't shake his discomfort with Chip's changed appearance, but the voice was unmistakable.

"So, Sonic, you said… You said you could tell me about who I am?" Chip stuck a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, leaving white residue. A brown chip was stuck to his cheek.

"That's right. Your real name is Light Gaia," Sonic murmured over a bite of chili dog. "But the time you lost your memory I named you Chip. You're… a force of good that lives inside our planet, and wakes up every so many years to fight Dark Gaia, who's evil. But… if you wake up too early, you lose your memory. Or at least, that's how you explained it to me last time."

Chip put down his spoon, looking down. "So… I exist… to save the world?"

"Pretty much. Hey, so do I." Sonic looked away, trying not to think about it.

Chip was silent for a moment, before finally, voice trembling, he asked, "What if I don't want to?"

Sonic started to answer, but then he felt his chest tighten. Did he really say that? He looked at Chip, who looked at him expectantly, sucking on a chunk of banana that was half hanging out his lips.

"Well?"

Sonic pushed his spoon into the cup, recoiling slightly when it didn't bend. He was already missing the werehog's strength. He pulled it up, but could not bring himself to shovel the ice cream into his mouth. The thought of it repulsed him, eating on top of such a horrendous possibility.

"I guess you'll just wait until you come around," Sonic assured, averting his eyes. He put the ice cream in his mouth and tried to ignore the shock in the pit of his stomach by focusing on the slick, vanilla sweetness. He reminded himself that his outrage at Chip's thought was the same as what everyone else had for him. He reminded himself that he didn't need to diminish himself by judging someone else.

"OK," Chip looked at a clock. "Can I come around after this Sundae?"

Sonic smiled, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

* * *

The sounds of metal on metal grated on Shadow's ears as he entered what was colloquially known as the throne room. It was more than an hour before his shift started, but Amy was en route to Spagonia now, he saw little point in staying home.

The Emperor's robe was draped over a chair, his crown sitting on a console. A pair of thin black legs stuck out from beneath the new suppressor model, a tiny tower of green metal , curving and curling around an exposed grating of gray steel. One of Prower's false emeralds sat in a case on the console next to the crown, waiting to be inserted. Shadow wondered what would become of the world with all these false emeralds if Sonic succeeded.

As Eggman lay there working, something in his mind, something like Black Doom's voice, whispered to him that he could kill Eggman now and end his cruel reign. Shadow had learned by now that this was a side effect of Dark Gaia infection. It reduced inhibitions and awakened one's darkest desires, at least in him. In Amy, it just seemed to make her want to dance, but she had a purer heart. Not for Shadow; he found he was too haunted, too angry, to fight it off completely. He couldn't always hold it back, and Eggman gave him a steady stream of executions to keep that in check. He should be grateful. Or he should…

"Shadow! Lend me a hand, will you?"

Try not to kill the bastard who did this to them in the first place.

He walked over and reached out, holding the bar encircled by Eggman's black-gloved hand. Eggman released it. It was quite heavy.

"This is the last suppressor we'll ever have to build, I hope. I'm moving our attention to Reflection after this."

Shadow blinked. "But the point of Reflection is to get us away from Gaia, from Earth. If we beat Dark Gaia, we won't need to leave."

Eggman slid out from beneath the machine. "You can let go now, Shadow. We can't just take for granted that we're going to win, but if we do, a lunar colony will still have benefits to humanity. Gaia suppressors will not. What's a few month's pause in production?"

"That's a gamble."

"Shadow, I'm disappointed in your lack of faith."

"We live in a world where what's bad gets worse, not better." Shadow finally let go of the bar. It stayed still. "If I didn't know you better, cousin, I would think there were another reason you wanted us on the moon. Or what's left of it." Shadow grinned.

"Let's not go reminding each other of our mistakes, Shadow. We haven't got time to spend the night crying our sorrows away." Eggman looked at him, smiling sadly, looking at him with blue eyes that reminded him so much of Maria. Remembering her face, remembering her death, brought a swelling of rage into Shadow's face, his mouth, his claws. Eggman frowned and motioned toward a door, and Shadow knew what to do.

* * *

It was nightfall by the time they reached the jungle. Chip had chattered away all day, asking about this and that. Sonic answered patiently, thoroughly, eyes always forward. Sonic found himself unwilling to see a face he barely recognized. He wondered if that's what Tails and Amy had thought of him when he had changed into the werehog.

Suddenly, as the last traces of sunlight disappeared on the horizon, Sonic's head began to spin. He leaned on a tree.

"Sonic, what's wrong?" Chip's voice cracked.

"I… don't be afraid, Chip," he panted as the pain washed down his spine, through his bones. "I'm still… ugh. I'm still me."

"Sonic? What are you talking about?"

He groaned as the sunset finished and the change finally washed over him. He could feel his hands growing, claws appearing, fur erupting. His teeth grew in his mouth, stabbing his lips as he clenched his jaw. He reached out and put his weight on his arms, willing them not to bend, standing once more on all fours.

"What just happened?" Chip flew over to him, shaking a little in the air, voice quavering. "You were little and spiny and now you're all fuzzy and big and sharp!"

"I think... that day and night mean I change again. I'm possessed by Dark Gaia, I have been for ten years. Most people are now, a little. It makes us change, effects our emotions. Some people don't fight it as well as me, and act weird, but me, I just change. If we can stop Dark Gaia, I'll go back to being the hedgehog, full time. If not, I'm stuck like this forever." Sonic sighed. "Until then, I guess I'll change back and forth with the sun."

Chip flew up to his shoulder. "But you want to be the hedgehog, right?"

"More than anything." He considered, putting his claw on his chin. "Well, almost anything. I guess I'd rather have my old life back."

"What was your old life like?"

Sonic sat down on a fallen log, glancing at Chip, who sat on his leg. He watched with wide green eyes, tracing every moment of Sonic's lips and brow, like a little child, the way Tails used to look at him.

"I always said I was just a guy who loves adventure. I guess I wasn't just anything. I was the fastest thing alive." Sonic grinned, baring his pointy teeth. "I was a hero. I saved the world countless times, it was basically my job." He pulled out a dazzling yellow gem that sparkled in the hazy moonlight. It made Chip recoil. "This is a fake chaos emerald. They're a massively important power source. I used to use the real ones, all seven, to become Super Sonic. I was even stronger like that, almost invincible. I stopped Eggman countless times, and Chaos, and Metal Sonic…"

"So you miss fighting?"

"A little." Sonic wrung his hands. "What I really miss, though, is knowing that if something happened, I could take it. Any threat, I could beat. Even the ones I couldn't, well, Shadow could. Like Black Doom. Shadow took me out and then went after him all by himself! It was embarrassing, but I knew he'd never let us down."

Chip flew up to his face, reaching out to touch it with a tiny paw. "Why can't you take it now?"

"Dark Gaia beat us years ago, Chip. You, and me." Sonic picked him up and held him up high. "I couldn't stop him; I fainted. If I can stop him, change myself back, then I handled it after all, even if it took ten years."

Chip thought for a second, frowning. "Gee, Sonic, I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm sorry that you feel bad." Chip flew down to Sonic's chest and nestled into his fur.

Sonic wrapped an arm around Chip.

"It's not your fault, buddy. Not mine either."

* * *

They gathered before sunrise at the top of the tower.

At one time, Miles, thought, this was the highest tower in the United Federation. He glanced over the edge of the building, down at the warped cityscape below. What was once gray was now orange and yellow, brought to life in garish color. This was once Empire City, he thought to himself, but now, it is East Ivopolis.

He shuddered beneath his emerald cloak. His neighbor asked, "Are you all right?" and he found himself wondering if that was the old GUN Commander's perpetually stuffed-up voice he heard.

Miles nodded. "Just a chill," he said. "Not used to the wind up here." He glanced up at the obviously human figure next to him, clad in a thick dark green cloak like his own. After all, they were supposed to be anonymous. You never knew when Dark Gaia was lurking, hitchhiking with someone. Tails suspected the real reason was that Eggman was afraid people were plotting against him, but he'd never voice that concern. It would feed into the idea, which was actually quite true.

A figure in an identical cloak made his way up to a podium the top of the roof; there was no secret who lead this fellowship. Their portly, erudite leader cleared his throat and spoke.

"Children of Gaia, Legion of Light, welcome. We are gathered here this morning to celebrate the first sunrise in ten years." Cheers began as he continued. "We also celebrate the return of our savior, Light Gaia!"

Screams of joy erupted from the crowd. Tails mused that this one wouldn't be so secret, but then he realized some of the screaming was coming from him. What was he so excited about?

A white-gloved hand shot into the air, then another, pushing down as if to lower the crowd's volume. Finally, he announced, "But the long night is not over." A sober silence fell over the crowd. "Now that we have our leader, we must e ready to be the Soldiers of Light, on the front lines in the fight against the Abomination, Dark Gaia. We must ensure Light Gaia's Ultimate Supremecy. His Imperial Majesty has given us permission to oversee the means to our salvation."

Miles boggled. What on earth was he talking about? Now that the earth was cracked open, the team would go restore the emeralds and continents and then attack Dark Gaia directly. That was the plan. If Sonic were still alive and involved, so be it, though Miles couldn't deny his excitement at the idea. But… what would the Bearers of Gaia do?

"We have a secret weapon against Dark Gaia, one not dreamed of by our ancestral Soldiers of Light. The Moon. Always it has hung there, a reminder of our savior even in the darkest of nights. But now it is our weapon."

Tails took a step back, almost swooning. He had been working with Eggman on Reflection so long, he had never realized its true purpose. He thought the space ship was to escape Dark Gaia, not… whatever this was. The not-GUN Commander righted him, murmuring in a soothing tone, "We haven't been chosen by mistake. Be strong, my Brother."

From the podium the leader pulled folders of pale green. "The Time has come for some of us to shed our anonymity, for Dark Gaia can no longer take us anew. Some of you are already doing our Lord's work, and for those of you who have not, I have found you tasks."

Miles began to back out of the crowd.

"Those of you already working on the Empire's Project Reflection should leave now." Tails looked to the leader and locked his gaze with teal, unspectacled eyes beneath the speaker's green hood. "But know that our true plans must still stay secret, for Light Gaia to reveal to the unready and the unworthy. Who knows which of Dark Gaia's agents may be among us, waiting to strike?"

As Tails left, he found himself wondering what the moon could do about Dark Gaia… and why Eggman's eyes suddenly looked so green.

* * *

"Why hello there… Ack!"

It was morning, and Sonic was annoyed. He looked behind him, searching for Chip. He could only assume, by that little exchange, that Chip was bugging the animals again. Under the light of the searing Mazuri sun, however, he could see Chip vigorously flying away from a large beetle. At first, Sonic dismissed it, but then he noticed that the beetle was nearly the same size as Chip. It seemed to glow green, even in the golden sunlight, a dazzling gem among the tall, tan grasses.

"Impossible!" he gasped.

"Get it away from me!" Chip pleaded.

Sonic leaped into it, curling into a ball, and knocking it from the air. It disintegrated as it landed in a burst of green light.

"What… what was that thing?" Chip more exclaimed than asked. He flew into Sonic's chest, cold nose pressed against bare skin. Sonic let a soft cough at the impact, the wind knocked out of him, and took a second to catch his breath.

"It seemed like a Dark Gaia monster." Sonic reached down and picked up a tiny, dead beetle where it would have landed. "But it's broad daylight? I thought Dark Gaia is weaker during the day, you even told me that. How can that be?"

"I don't know," Chip noted. "Maybe Dark Gaia is getting stronger."

"And I noticed a lot of times… the creatures die if you beat the Dark Gaia out of them." Sonic considered the beetle, holding it high for Chip to see.

"I think the keyword there is 'beating,' Sonic." Chip looked up with something like annoyance, one eyebrow raised and the other wrinkled in.

"You don't hit a bug that hard in flight… and… and, when we were underground, when Dark Gaia siphoned itself out of me, I felt tired. I was so… drained. That's…"

"So what? You… you think that if we stop Dark Gaia, you'll die?"

Sonic looked up at the clouds, trying to hide the fear in his eyes. "I hope it doesn't come to that, Chip. No matter how bad it is, I still like existing."

"Would you give anything to stay alive?" Chip flew up to look Sonic in the eyes, his own face seeming to glow with curiosity.

"No, not at all. I'd give anything to go back to living."

* * *

They kept on through the day and night, Chip riding in Sonic's rubbery arms. Sonic held him close, enjoying the touch of another being. Chip didn't—couldn't—judge him for his failure, since one, he didn't remember it, and two, it was a failure he shared. Still, Sonic felt that Chip did judge him. That question about staying alive—was it an accusation of cowardice, or an unintentional trigger for Sonic's own paranoia?

"I must be losin' it," he muttered.

"What?"

"I thought I heard something," Sonic lied.

"It's a forest. Oh, oh, maybe it's a lion! Or a tiger. Or even a hyena!"

Sonic shuddered involuntarily at the thought. "You… remember what they are?"

"Sort of. Names are coming back to me, for things. Like spoons and the moon."

"That's good," Sonic cooed comfortingly, reminding himself that the last time they'd met, Chip had instantly dubbed him "Mr. Monster Guy."

"If a big scary lion tries to eat me… Sonic, would you save me?"

"Of course." He left out, "If I can."

Chip pressed himself closer to Sonic's fluffy chest. "And if Dark Gaia tries to get me?"

"I'll do my best."

"What if… what if you can't?"

In the back of Sonic's mind, something like a voice told him to drop Chip. Drop chip, give him a solid punt, and run away. He knew that on some level it was Dark Gaia wheedling at him, but he also worried, and knew, that it was the voice of his own heart; Dark Gaia couldn't create new resentment, just fuel what was already there. He wanted to say to Chip, Look at what I've given up for you, for the whole world! Isn't that enough? But he could almost hear Chip soothing him, reminding him that he's only got to answer to himself.

No, he decided. That's not Chip. That was Shadow's voice. Or Amy's.

So Sonic replied, "Then I'm sorry. But I'll do my best."

"Did you do your best last time?" Chip's eyes gleamed in the starlight, innocent.

"Yes," Sonic answered instantly, despite the nagging guilt, the weight in his heart.

"Practice makes perfect," Chip mused.

Sonic imagined himself a football star.

His fantasy was interrupted by a real tackle, a force of heat pushing him into the cool, damp ground. He landed chest first, and Chip went flying. The impact stole his breath, but then he gasped and forced himself over beneath the surprisingly light weight on him.

He realized as soon as his eyes faced the sky that he was in trouble, as a blood red shining moon of fingers collided with his face. He felt something sharp pierce his forehead.

Couldn't be.

"Leave him alone!" Chip cried from afar.

As the world came back into focus, Sonic saw a figure of red over him, long red dreadlocks like spikes barely tickling Sonic's face, and framing a smile. Out of a flowing black robe lined with brightly patterned print stuck an arm, extended to Sonic, spike knuckled and claw-like hand offered at Sonic's chest, awaiting his claw.

"That's for not telling us you were ok, you jerk!"

He was smiling a fang-toothed grin.

"Knucklehead."

Sonic took the hand in his claw and let Knuckles pull him up, the red figure framed in moonlight through a purple Gaia haze. Sonic felt his eyes begin to dry and burn.

"We've been worried."

"I know… but I know when I'm not wanted."

Knuckles reached up and smacked Sonic across the face with the inside of his hand. In response, Chip flew over and ineffectually tried to pull Knuckles' hand away, grunting in the air as his wings beat furiously.

"I don't want to be…"

"Guilty. You don't want to have to look at us and feel guilty. Why do you think I used to hide on that island?"

Sonic considered returning the swat. "You still hide on that island."

"It's not hiding if you protect people there."

"I don't want pity."

"Will you take a hug?"

Sonic blinked, surprised to hear Knuckles say something like that. Still, starved for contact, he spread his arms wide, ready to take Knuckles in to his chest and soothe him. Knuckles, however, reached over them, pulling Sonic's shoulders down to his level. He patted Sonic lightly on the back, otherwise still. Sonic fought tears, noticing something he'd never felt before. He wondered if this was what it felt like to have a dad, and then chided himself. Knuckles was his age.

"I have so much to tell you, Sonic." There was desperation in the voice, but also an eerie calm. "And half of it can't be said in the temples or the villages. Eggman has them bugged. We're going to have you impersonate Shadow in the village, since you're wearing his boots and cloak anyway. That's how I knew you were alive, actually. Rouge got a copy of Shadow's expense reports."

* * *

The village went quiet in the torchlight—Knuckles insisted on night. Before they entered, Sonic pulled up his hood.

"You think I can pass for Shadow?"

"You did before, when he stole the Chaos emerald."

Sonic glanced at Knuckles, irritated. "Why not unveil myself? You said I make people worry."

"Because I don't trust Eggman, that's why."

Knuckles sat in the tree, looking through binoculars at the village near the old temple. How could Knuckles be so confident, so…

"You? Mr. Gullible, 'He's my friend,' not trusting Eggman? Where's Blaze and Marine, because this is like another world."

Knuckles glided down. Sonic noticed he wavered in the air. "There was no reason for him to break the world open early. All he wanted was power. He got you killed, or so we thought, but then he acts like his Gaia Engines and Gaia Suppressors are our savior." Knuckles looked up at the blurry stars and spat. "I realized that he took you away from me, even if you weren't dead. He betrayed me, hurt me, lied to me all those times and then finally he robbed me of the one person who told me better. You were always right about that lying creep."

"I don't like this Eggman guy," Chip quipped, uselessly.

Sonic crossed his arms. "So why are you his ally? Why the whole sister cities thing, and ambassadors..."

Knuckles walked over and looked Sonic in the eye. "I'm using him like he used me. Through him, I was able to find you, shelter you, hide you from his eyes." Then Knuckles averted his eyes. "Besides, I'm one of them. The infectees. I need Gaia suppressors so I don't turn into what you are. They only work so well; even surrounded by them Shadow's a werehog. But between the protective effects of the Island and the suppressors I might be myself for another ten years."

"I hope it doesn't come to that. I… if I have help this time, maybe I can save us."

"You think you didn't have help before?" Knuckles scoffed, turning away. "Where do you think we were?"

"I never liked any of the answers I came up with." Sonic answered, defensively, offended.

"We were in the trenches in Empire City, trying to stop Eggman from installing the machines and an empire. All of us, even Cream. Shadow guarded the President until he got sick, and then Omega took over. I almost lost Rouge in a raid on the Dark Gaia Cauldron to clear the way for you, because we knew you were coming."

"I had no idea."

Knuckles crossed his arms. "We would have leapt into the Earth for you if we'd known."

* * *

As he was seated carefully, his crimson companion pulled a small tablet and a piece of paper from his black robe and presented it to the woman.

"Your Highness," she squeaked in her accent, "This is not necessary. We are all allies of Eggmanland and Angel Island, and what I am to tell you is no secret anymore. The Emperor's decree is just formality."

"I don't think so." Knuckles shook his head. "As you can see in the third section here, by this decree you are ordered to secrecy about this encounter. You are not permitted by the Republic of Mazuri to reveal to anyone that we were here."

"Very well, " she noted with annoyance.

Knuckles sat easily, crossing his ankle over his knee and leaning back in the chair. "We need you to tell us everything about your people's Land Magic—and how it relates to Light and Dark Gaia. The fate of the world is at stake, but you already know that, and I don't want to waste your time with any more… 'formalities.'"

"Specifically," Sonic ordered in his best Shadow voice, "We need to know how to restore the planet to its previous state." He stopped, and added an insecure, "Damn it," which earned him a hearty glare from Knuckles.

"How did the balance turn before? Light and Dark fight within the land—last time, Dark won."

Knuckles leaned forward. "How do we make sure Light wins?"

"Be its champion, Highness." She leaned back in her chair, avoiding Sonic's glance. "Since its last failed."

Sonic felt dizzy, and said nothing.

"To stop Dark Gaia," she noted, standing, " you need a champion who will not fail. Someone with the skill and strength of charact-"

Knuckles crossed his arms. "Lady, if you think Sonic didn't have strength of character, then you have no idea who he really was."

"I met him."

"I fought alongside him."

"He always saved us before," she hissed.

"And where were you?" Sonic barked suddenly, standing and doing his best Shadow growl. "We cleared the path to the last temple. We sabotaged the robots trying to stop him. MY WIFE traveled all over the world caring for him! And you gave him a couple words of advice. You did all you could, and it wasn't enough. So did he. I won't let you slander the only man to defeat me!"

Knuckles lip twisted up in a slight smirk, impressed.

The woman was quiet a while. Finally, she said quietly. "I… I'm sorry, Lord Shadow. I thought that you were him. But, I guess not. I thought that he was still alive, and he gave up. But if he died for us… then I guess that this is our fate."

"Do you treat all the dead and wounded soldiers who lost a war that way?" Sonic demanded, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks.

"No," she answered, looking down.

"What do you get out of guilt, except the approval of Dark Gaia in the back of your head?" He snarked. "Give me the God damned tablet so we can be on our way."

"You haven't passed my test!"

"You haven't got the right to test me. Not with a heart full of hate."

Knuckles stood back up. "Shadow. That's enough."

"We came here from Apotos!" Sonic roared. "We fought Dark Gaia creatures in broad daylight! This is the only chance we have in ten thousand some years to save our people! If your test means I have to let you desecrate a real hero, forget it. I'll tear the Temple to pieces to get to the Shrine."

She grabbed a staff from the wall, shining ominously in the green light. "Threats do nothing!"

"Blame does nothing! Blame just wastes time! Go grab yourself a mountain of handkerchiefs and cry 'cause Sonic wasn't there, but don't waste the world on your anger." Sonic lifted his hood slightly, revealing his coloration to her. She gasped. "I swear. I swear on the grave of Sonic the Hedgehog that despite my face, my heart is pure. I will stop Dark Gaia, or die trying."

"Die trying? As Sonic did last time?"

Sonic pulled up his cloak to the knees, above the top of Shadow's old boots. He couldn't literally see his scars, but as the woman gagged appreciatively he could see the horrid white swirls of burned tissue clearly in his mind's eye.

"Unless some idiot saves me. Then I'll just have to wait ten thousand years and try again."

* * *

Once they were clear of the village and Chip had emerged from inside Sonic's cloak, Knuckles gave him a shove.

"What were you doing, blowing your cover like that?" He demanded.

"We need those tablets, and I'm not just gonna take 'em from her!" Sonic pleaded. "And no, we can't take the Temples apart, that's just something Shad would say. Chip needs them to fight Dark Gaia."

"I do?" the fairy asked.

He was ignored, as Knuckles crossed his arms and put a fist to his chin. "So Amy was right…"

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "What?"

His old friend laughed. "When the temples disappeared, Amy thought that might b for that. A… giant… temple… mech."

"Amy came up with that?" Sonic chuckled. His eyes bugged out of his head.

"I know!" was Knuckles' incredulous response.

"I would have expected that—"

"—From Tails or Eggman!"

The duo collapsed in laughter on top of each other, leaving Chip laughing politely in the air above them. After a moment, Knuckles propped himself up and asked. "So what exactly are these tablets?"

"They're the keys to the Temples." Sonic sat up and pulled out the shining half-tablet from his cloak. "This is the first half. The other half I'll probably find in Apotos."

"We'll find it."

"Knuckles…" Sonic stood up, and pulled his friend to his feet. "If I fail, every day you spend on the island, or around the suppressors in Eggmanland, is more time, right? Before you're like me?"

"I missed the party last time." Knuckles rubbed the back of his knuckles, kneading at inflamed joints.

"So find a reason to be in Eggmanland when I do the last Emerald. That's where I hope to go."

"He'll know you're coming."

Sonic looked to the east, where the sun had begun to rise. "If he really has changed, he'll roll out the red carpet to help me. If he hasn't, I want him overconfident, thinking he's ready for me."

Knuckles shook his head. "What if he really is ready for you?"

"I'll have you guys." Sonic flashed a fanged grin.

"He'll expect that."

"Never worked for him before."

"Things change, Sonic," Chip noted.

"Not as much as you'd think."

Knuckles put a hand on Sonic's shoulder. "I'm going to feign Gaia Sickness to get to a doctor in Eggmanland. I'll send Rouge to assist you in Apotos; Amy is waiting for you in Spagonia, and there are others around. Take this." He grabbed Sonic's hand and placed in it a dull, gray gem.

"It'll be Red again, soon," Sonic promised, gripping it tight.

"I hope you'll be gold by the end of this."


	3. Chapter 2: Windmill Fighting

Chapter 2: Windmill Fighting

"Remember that guy, Chip? He reminds me of Knuckles."

Chip looked at the ice cream vendor, who was scooping ice cream in the shadow of a white tower. "Nope."

"Or this city?" Sonic swung his hand wide, motioning to the white walls covered in vines.

"I don't remember anything. Do you think I ever will?"

"I'm sure of it." He smiled under the cloak, lips visible to Chip as he grabbed his ice cream.

Sonic ordered another sundae, this one with extra banana. Chip notice him wrinkle his nose a little as he received his bowl. He wondered how Sonic could not like ice cream! Sonic had sharp teeth, at least some times, and sharp teeth meant they eat animals, and didn't Sonic like to eat animal stuff? And Ice Cream came from animals, and it was sweet and wet and special…

"Don't you like ice cream, Sonic?"

Sonic looked at him, shocked, green eyes gleaming in the shade of his hood. After a moment, he answered, sitting down at the café table. "Sure I do, Chip. I just don't feel much like eating right now."

"Aww! Why not?"

Sonic sighed. "I don't know. I'm just nervous, I guess, about all this. I've spent almost half my life waiting to make things right. Now it's time… and… so many people are pointing fingers in the wrong direction. But Knuckles forgives me… it's all so complicated. I'm so complicated."

"But you should be happy, right?"

"I still feel guilty."

"Why?"

Sonic stuck some ice cream in his mouth and seemed almost to fight a gag. "Because I made a mistake. I went the wrong way, jumped the gun, and screwed up. If I'd gone the right direction when I chaos controlled years ago, I could have taken out Dark Gaia… I think. I let everyone down, and I let you down."

Chip frowned. "But you did your very best! I… I don't blame you!" Chip flew up to sit on his shoulder. "You did your very best and I'm not sad you lost to Dark Gaia at all except that it hurts you! You're my friend and you take care of me, and I just want you to be happy."

There was a long pause.

"Really?"

"Really."

Sonic's shoulders sagged with relief. "And the truth is… my stomach always goes kind of crazy when I first start changing back and forth. It's not fun, let me tell you, and I guess feeling wonky for a week or two is par for the course. Gaia Sickness, they're callin' it now."

"How can I help?"

"Think you can eat another ice cream while I go get me a cup of soup?"

A hand slid in from behind them and grabbed Sonic's spoon. "Why don't I take this as payment for your passage into the temple? That way it won't go to the little guy's hips."

Chip craned his neck to look past Sonic, into a deep tan valley, and grinned. "You must be Rouge. I think I like you."

"Eyes up here, fairy boy."

* * *

Sonic looked down across the rolling field, and sighed. He had last seen it ten years before in stony moonlight, everything washed with an almost ethereal glow. He had learned quickly that that strange beauty in the light was an artifact of Gaia force, one decidedly less lovely when it blocked all light from the moon.

Now, though, he beheld the same path to the ruins in sunlight, harsh in the blue November sun and crumbling more than ever. Particularly gorgeous pillars and walls were torn down, ramsacked, no doubt sitting in some infected human's basement as a testament to both his dissatisfaction and infection. The grass was a strange dull green, darkened by ten years of pale, purple sunlight.

A delicate hand reached around to rest on his shoulder and pull him closer gently. "It's going to be fine. You just have to get through it." She purred.

"What is it with everyone playing parent with me?" Sonic shrugged out of the hug and walked on, his cloak flapping in the light breeze.

Rouge picked up her pace to catch up with him. She looked older, though not as much as Sonic expected, not near as much as most of the others did. Her hair was longer now, tied back in a long braid on her bare back; her skin was paler, no doubt due to the lack of sunlight to maintain her tan. She was beautiful, especially now that she was more covered up. She wore a tight violet tunic with a plunging neckline and back over that black bodysuit she always favored now, and the trim on her gloves and boots, as well as the latters' new laces, were violet to match. The only artifacts he could see of her new title were a large gold necklace hanging low in her cleavage and a gemstone he had never seen before on a ring on her finger.

She glanced over at him. "He's really grown, hasn't he?"

"More than I have."

Rouge smiled. "I was lucky to see that side of him early. He saved me from falling—even though I could have caught myself. I won't say losing you was the best thing that ever happened to him, because he misses you every day. But it made him appreciate who you were, and it helped him understand who he is."

Sonic scoffed. "Who I was?"

"You're hardly the same boy who fought the monsters." She kicked a rock out of her path.

"I don't think I've changed that much. Not for the better, at least."

Rouge stopped, and, with a roll of his eyes, he turned to face her. Chip bumped softly into his back.

"What snapped down there?" She asked him, furrowing her brow. "What went wrong in your head that kept you from winning?"

He crossed his arms, glaring.

"I know you didn't run away, but what the Hell, Sonic?"

He closed his eyes… and started walking toward the cliff.

With a cry of indignation, she followed him. He paused, waiting until she caught up, and then shoved her, sending her falling toward the ocean below.

Rouge screamed, flapping her wings and angling herself to fly upward, but a fierce wind pushed her down. He could just see the look of utter shock on her face, not at being shoved, but at being pushed down by the wind so hard her wings couldn't fight it. He rolled his eyes again and then closed them, grabbing the emerald between her breasts with his mind and pulling it through the cosmic foam into his arms, her with it. She was still screaming, and he pulled her closer, resting a chin on her forehead.

"Shh. I had you the whole time. You're safe."

She reached up and punched him, hard, in the jaw, and instinctively he dropped her.

"What is wrong with you! I could have died!"

"I had you. But I wanted you to see what it felt like." He looked into her eyes, fighting tears.

"How could that be what it felt like?"

"I had to get close to Dark Gaia and the only way I could was by using Chaos Control to fly. You have to… find the right updrafts to keep going up, in a way. I hit a down draft by mistake and went plummeting into the magma. I woke up next to a windmill," he pointed, "about twenty miles that way, with healed burns on my leg and no idea where I was."

"So you screwed up."

"I thought I could do it. I was sure I could do it. But it didn't work out. Someone, I think Chip, saved me. But I was seconds away from death." He sat down next to her.

"I thought I could do it," she echoed, and he raised his eyebrow. She sat up and continued, looking down. "When Shadow first came around. I was trying to investigate him, and to do that I had to get in with Eggman. I had to steal the Chaos Emeralds out of the GUN Vault on Prison Island to win his trust. I said I could do it in five minutes. But I didn't think there'd be an armed Mech. I defeated Flying Dog, but there were only seconds left before Eggman blew up the island."

"And Shadow chaos controlled in to save you."

She nodded.

"So you know what it's like to fail, when you shouldn't fail, because you're the best."

Rouge looked away.

"And it's fair enough for you to judge me in your heart, because it's your life that's screwed up because I failed." Sonic stood up, looking down at her. "But I want you to know something, Rouge. I wasn't getting paid your tax dollars to save the world. No one hired me. I did it because I wanted to, and I did my best. I did way more than any law or any government asked me to. You have no right to berate me for it; keep your backseat demon-fighting to yourself."

Sonic started walking toward the shrine, and Rouge quickly scrambled to her feet to follow. Chip flew up to match pace with him and nodded at him, as if to offer his backing. In response, Sonic took Chip and put him on a shoulder.

* * *

She pulled on the lever to turn on the elevator, and after a few moments, it gave, setting them free.

"First time I came through here," he noted, standing, "I got ambushed by Dark Gaia creatures. "

Rouge crossed her arms. "It's broad daylight, Sonic."

"But in Mazuri Chip and I fought one in the daytime. A green glowing beetle."

Rouge stared at him, her jaw dropping, exposing her perfect little fangs. "But Dark Gaia is only active at night."

"Not anymore. Actually, now that I think of it I haven't seen too many Dark Gaia creatures at night."

"What are you guys waiting for?" Chip chirped. "It's just a temple! Let's go!" Chip dropped down into the elevator shaft… and promptly screamed.

Sonic rolled his eyes and hopped down, landing in a crouch and surveying the situation. Chip was running away from what appeared to be a glowing green cat, dodging and weaving behind beautiful marble pillars. Another, similar creature ran over to Sonic and sunk its teeth into his foot.

Sonic shouted and kicked it away as Rouge dropped down the shaft. She flew toward a glowing beetle hovering nearby and spun in the air, hitting it with her heel. Chip slapped ineffectually at the green cat following him, and Sonic reached out to grab it, but found his arms coming a few body lengths short.

"You aren't the werehog!" Rouge shouted, divebombing the creature chasing Chip.

"Thanks for the reminder," Sonic growled, jumping into another beetle.

Rouge threw the Gaia Cat off the balcony, and Sonic spun into another beetle that landed on the ground. It was then that what appeared to be a giant bear-like creature of white light appeared from behind a pillar.

The two larger furries swore, while Chip hid under a crate. The creature simply charged for the crate, roaring.

"It's zeroing in on Chip?" Sonic pondered.

Rouge picked up a crate and flew over toward the bear, dropping it on the creature. Sonic tried to do the same, only to find his strength lacking. Instead, he leapt on top of the crate and used the height to get a headshot on the bear. He glanced off and landed nearby, and stopped to consider it as it tried to find Chip underneath the crate. It was white and tall, with strange curly ears and tiny, undersized arms, as opposed to the oversized hands of the Dark Gaia soldiers. It was reeling a bit, holding Chip's crate with one hand as it rubbed its neck.

"Let's hit it at the same time!" Rouge called.

Sonic nodded and started spinning in place. Rouge cried out, and he let go, driving himself into it. It faded away in a burst of green light. The crate toppled to the ground, spinning, and landed Chip-side up.

"Chip. When we're talking about how dangerous something probably is, don't just charge in, ok?" Sonic scolded.

"Yes sir!" was the sheepish response.

* * *

As the sun began to set, he sat down on a stony ledge, groaning.

"What is it?" Rouge asked, turning to him.

"I need a minute," he complained.

"Why? What's wrong?" She walked over, cocking her head to the side.

"He's changing," Chip informed her.

Sonic looked up at her. "After the fight with Dark Gaia, I woke up werehog. I started changing back to hedgehog in the day, and then werehog at night when the moon came back." He started to explain, but Rouge held up a hand.

"I remember when Shadow got sick. The changing is hard. I had a little case before we got some dampeners for the Island. I don't know what it is about you and Shadow that's different, but most of us don't change that much." Rouge looked up, pondering. "I wonder why you two are different?"

"But any changes to you guys might be permanent."

"All the more reason to get this under wraps as soon as possible." Rouge looked at Sonic. "You get some rest. I'll go gather something for a fire. I've got some camping rations; hope you can cook." She grinned.

"I'm sure I can whip up something."

Rouge flew off, and Sonic sighed.

"I like her. She's mean but… she's pretty."

Sonic laughed. "Chip, I had no idea you were interested in girls."

"What? Why wouldn't I be?"

He smiled and lay back on the ground. "Last time you only seemed to be interested in two things: Chocolate, and me."

Chip sat down on Sonic's stomach. "Maybe I'm different this time."

Sonic frowned and tried to ignore the weight. "That was funny, how she was talking about that time people mistook me for Shadow, wasn't it?"

"I don't remember Shadow, so I can't say… do you guys really look that close?"

"Yeah." Sonic chuckled, making Chip move. "Everyone mistook us for one another—even Amy, who thought she was in love with me. Makes me wonder how similar we are. He even married Amy."

"Did you like Amy?"

"I guess. I mean, she was cute, and she was a good hero, but she was so clingy that I didn't want anything to do with it. She'd probably be ok now, but I'd never make a move on Shad's girl."

"Why not?" Chip leaned over, lying on his own stomach.

"It's wrong. Especially after all Shadow's done to help me hide myself." Sonic thought for a minute. "You know. I read a book once… about a guy who wanted to get rid of all the evil in his heart. So he did something that made him turn into this weird monster that looked like a different person, with no inhibitions. …And actually, I think that in the book he used to get really sick to his stomach when he changed. Eventually he lost control of changing and his good and evil started to blend together. Then he died."

Chip blinked, confused.

"I think whoever wrote that book… knew about this somehow. I read in the author's notes that it came to him in a dream."

"You think someone put it in his dreams?"

"Yeah."

"What's that have to do with you and Shadow?"

"You'd think a guy like me would have all these demons, but I really don't. But I wonder how Shad is doing. He's been hurt a lot, has a lot of anger. ..And I wonder, Chip. If you're as nice as you are, what's going through Dark Gaia's head right now?"

Chip thought about that for a moment, and sat back up on Sonic's abdomen, making the hedgehog flinch. "Probably all sorts of evil things!"

"Did it ever run through your head," Sonic noted frowning, "That I feel awful and you're squishing my organs?"

"OH!" Chip flew up into the air, frowning. "I'm so sorry, Sonic!"

"Come down here and lay next to me, not on top. We'll watch the sun go down." Sonic patted the ground next to him, smiling. "And then I'll cook us something when Rouge gets back."

* * *

The moon hung low near the horizon when they finally reached the door to the shrine. Chip pulled out half the tablet and then turn to the others. "So uh… do we have the other half?"

Sonic swore, crossing his arms. "I knew we forgot something."

"You didn't forget," Rouge purred, approaching Chip. She reached into her shirt. "You mentioned it a few times. I took care of it before we even crossed paths." She pulled out the other half of the tablet and put them together.

Sonic raised his eyebrow. "How'd you know how to combine them?"

"My old boss taught me. You know he's from outside Empire City, by the Death Ruins? Right by the Temple Eggman built around."

"So that's why he sent all those troops there, when the Black Arms came…"

Chip took the key and pressed it into the door, a look of surprise on his face, as if he were shocked that he knew what he was doing. It opened and Sonic raced in, stretching out his arm and placing the Emerald in the Shrine. It sparkled in the dim glow and the earth began to move.

"I've got to report in to the boss," Rouge told Sonic quietly. "We've all met with the Temple Guardians to learn how, so I don't need to say a thing about you, but he may have cameras, so he might know. You could go anywhere next, but Amy's at her lab in Spagonia—she'd really like to see you."

Sonic grinned. "Is the reason you're so calm in an earthquake because you can fly?"

"No, because we built these temples to last. Sonic, I'm sorry I was rude about judging you, but you need to take a look at yourself. The old Sonic would never have shoved someone off a cliff just to prove a point. And if I hear of you doing that to anyone I care about, you really will be inside the Earth."

He let her walk away and frowned.


	4. Chapter 3: Rooftop Reveries

Chapter 3: Rooftop Reveries

It was a quick Chaos Control to Spagonia University from the windmill, though he waited until the sun came up for clarity of mind. It was, perhaps, a little too quick. As he was knocked over, he cursed his natural attraction to the false emeralds everyone seemed to have these days and his failure to prepare for the onslaught.

She put the hammer away, making it disappear into the tiny pocket of the cosmic foam every furry seemed to carry with them. He looked at her from his place on the floor and his jaw fell. He'd seen her on TV, of course, in waiting rooms and retail stores, but he wasn't prepared for the way she'd look in person. She glared down at him with bright green eyes, delicately lined in dark blue. Her hair hung, a little unkempt, around her face, much the same as it always had but without that Alice in Wonderland headband to keep it out of her eyes. She crossed her bare arms, resting white-gloved hands on her biceps, obscuring the pockets on her black vest. The old red dress she wore was no longer hoop-skirted and now grazed her hips. Her boots were laced now, a trend he was noticing in his absence. Perhaps most notable, and most embarrassing to him, was the sight of her undergarments. She was always busy flashing him upskirt shots of innocent white briefs back in the day, but from his viewpoint on the floor he could see the same pair of boxer shorts Shadow had been wearing last time he'd seen his double.

"I'll have you know I'm a married woman, Sonic, so you can stop looking up my skirt right now."

"You're the one who knocked me down!" he growled, climbing to his feet. "How am I not supposed to look at rubber duckies?"

"I didn't think you'd fall!"

He staggered, catching himself on her desk, ignoring her.

"Oh God, Sonic, I'm sorry." She ran over, sweeping him up in her arms, first in a side hug and then scooping up his knees in her other arm. "I forgot how sick you get."

He tried to resist, squirming, to stand on his own. After a while though, something in the back of his mind told him to let her: "She needs this as much as you do." So he relaxed in her arms and watched her lift up a foot to pull a door handle, watched her carry him out to a leather couch in the library in front of a great globe, putting him down on it. Was this the same couch that was here when Professor Pickle was here? Was…

"You must have tons of questions," Amy noted. "But you're also looking green, so they can wait. Here's what you need to know. I'm Dr. Rose now, not Amy. I'm here to help you with this Gaia temple and send you on your way. I know Rouge and Knuckles are probably trying to hide you from Eggman but I'm certain he knows, so you can ditch Shadow's goofy cape. But for now, you're resting. I'll bring you something to eat in a little while.

She walked away, and Chip whistled.

"You shouldn't have looked up her skirt, Sonic!"

"I didn't mean to."

"She caught you."

Sonic blinked. "You mean… you think it would have been OK if she hadn't seen me looking?"

Chip considered. "Well, not ok. But… You wouldn't have gotten in trouble?"

"Chip. For one, I think on some level she wanted that to happen. I mean, she spent her childhood stalking me. But for two… just because you didn't get caught doesn't mean it's not wrong. I screwed up the whole world, I'm not afraid of what happens to me because my eye wandered. I just hope she really did want that secretly, and that I didn't hurt her feelings with it."

"You hurt my feelings more by not telling me you were safe and going to Shadow behind my back," she growled, coming back in with a tray. She sat it on the curved-legged table in front of them and put a cup in Sonic's hands. He breathed in, taking in the scent of warm tea. He closed his eyes as he heard Chip speak.

"Ooh, what are these? They look tasty."

"Cucumber sandwiches. Old time's sake."

Sonic smiled, in spite of himself, and sipped his tea, eyes still closed.

hr

She caught him in her arms as he fell, holding him close.

"Ugh. What… happened?"

"You already forgot what it feels like to change?" she chided, holding him.

"I forgot it screws up my chaos control!" Shadow snapped, trying to stand. His knees buckled.

"You just went to and from Apotos when you're already sick. Sit down."

"I have to agree, cousin. Have a seat," came a booming voice.

Rouge looked up at the sound, observing Dr. Robotnik—Emperor Robotnik—sitting on his gilded throne, buttons on his red cape shining in the dim light. Shining, also, were his trademark blue spectacles, though he wore no goggles on his bald head now. His moustache was nearly gray, and now joined by a similarly colored goatee. Rouge smiled at the sight of him, fighting the feeling of disgust in the pit of her stomach. Sitting there on his golden throne, in a room of green and white and gold, he looked like some kind of savior out of the old artwork….

At his order, Rouge lightened her grip, and Shadow let himself drop to the floor on his behind, grunting as the shock of impact ran up his spine. She rolled her eyes, not expecting him to go down quite so hard. She glanced at Shadow sitting there, looking like his old self, and fought tears.

Eggman snapped his fingers. "Can we get these two some chairs?"

A pair of young women in long green gowns skittered out of the shadows, each carrying a high-backed chair. They sat them down, and one lifted Shadow into a chair with surprising strength.

"Thank you, ladies. Could you get them some tea? And maybe something for Shadow, what would you like?"

He thought for a moment. "Maybe some toast?"

They curtsied and disappeared through the door at the far end of the throne room. Rouge sat and crossed her legs.

"If at any point you need to leave and lie down, Shadow, please tell me, and I shall have someone take you to your quarters."

Shadow nodded, but smiled. "I've been through this before. I was ready this time. Just not for that much chaos control at once right after. I'll be fine."

"Very well. Thank you for bringing Rouge here so quickly. Knuckles has already arrived, and is in treatment. But… tell me about Apotos."

"I met Knuckles at the bridge and he handed me the tablet piece. I pickpocketed an old man to get the other one. I made my way through the ruins to the Gaia Shrine and deposited the emerald, and then everything went back into place. "

Eggman brushed his moustache with a thumb and forefinger. "How did you open the door?"

"The door?"

"A little sprite that had been following Knuckles helped me." Rouge added, carefully.

"What did he look like?" He leaned forward.

"Uh, blue-violet, with horns and…"

Eggman simply noded. "And he was alone?"

"Just with Knuckles."

Eggman frowned. "I was hoping Sonic might have returned with him." He choked, suddenly. "I… I owe him such an apology. This is all so much my fault. If I could take it all back…" The emperor let out a sob, and Rouge felt herself wavering. Was it possible that Eggman was really sorry?

Shadow started to say something, and Rouge reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing tight, as if to stop him. But he continued, anyway.

"Save your tears for when the world is safe, Doctor." Shadow spat coldly. "If you really want to honor his memory, save the world." Then Shadow looked up, and took a step further than Rouge ever would have. "Then abdicate, and turn the throne over to Cream. And shoot yourself."

The handmaidens arrived with the tea, delivering it with nervous frowns and shaking hands, and Eggman quickly wiped his eyes as his sobs grew even more intense. Shadow dug the remnants of a claw into Rouge's fingers, chiding, forcing her to lighten her grip. Then he brushed the back of her hand with a thumb. Guards emerged from the shadows.

"Shadow," she hissed. "How could you? Is it Dark Gaia?"

"It's noon," he snapped. "That was all me."

hr

It was still daytime when he woke, but he wondered why he was so hungry. His stomach churned with the upcoming change and with emptiness, or so he thought. Far off he could smell something frying, but it seemed so distant compared to his hunger and his grogginess.

It wasn't pain, exactly, nor was it unpleasant. It was the haziness of a pleasant sleep, the afterglow of good dreams. He dreamed of Amy and Shadow, of dresses and tuxedos… Only now as he began to wake did the absurdity of marrying them both seem apparent. He chuckled to himself, flashing back to old tabloid headlines he'd laughed at back then, headlines that now seemed so insignificant and so pedantic. But where but a dream could he see Tails dancing with Cream among rubber chickens, and Chip bursting out of a wedding cake with chili dogs?

Ten years ago dreams of a wedding would have nightmares, unless in the dream he was the best man or the DJ.

He groggily tried to sit, finding it a bit more difficult than usual. It wasn't fatigue, it was… focus. It seemed so much more difficult to keep his mind on one thing, to contract this muscle and relax another, when he could be thinking about the dream he had before the wedding, in which he and Tails were looking for Espio in Holoska. Sonic's snowboard kept snapping, so finally he spun like a buzz saw to cut one out of a tree.

As he sat up, watching the sunlight pour in the East window, he smiled, glad to finally feel rested for the first time in years…

East?

Sonic jumped to his feet, staggering as the back of his brain struggled to catch up with the front. When he'd arrived the sun had been filtering in the other window, and had been much lower besides. His cloak sat folded, neat and clean, on the table nearby, as did a pair of fresh socks and a new pair of gloves. His boots also sat there, shined and cleaned noticeably free of the rotten dairy smell they'd acquired over the years. No, Sonic decided, they were most certainly not the old ones.

He looked over at a majestic grandfather clock, its golden hands making right angles, shorter leg pointing toward the window. The pendulum inside, shaped like a golden buzzsaw with two red gems embedded near one side, swung back and forth. He laughed in spite himself, surprised to see some evidence that someone still considered him a hero. Amy's lab. Of course.

But then he looked at the face of the clock and the realization hit him. "I slept 18 hours." He blurted.

Sonic looked around the room for evidence of what it is that could have put him out through his change back and forth into the werehog, and ultimately found it on his own arm—a strange, gooey residue on his bicep. He finally glanced at the note on the table, and growled.

"Dear Sonic,

"You were looking a little pale and tired, so I put a mild sedative in your tea. I remember how sick you were last time, and I think that might have been part of why things went wrong, so I decided to take things into my own hands and ensure your health. I used a heavier sedative, being so near sunset, and when you were still out soundly when the sun was about to rise, I used another sedative with a shorter half-life so you wouldn't have the pain of changing. The one I used causes crazy vivid dreams, so have fun! I'm sorry to deceive you, but I owe you your health, all the chasing I used to do to you.

"Here are your clothes—they were looking ratty, so I raided Shadow's drawer in my bedroom here. If you want something different I can take you up there and show you his clothes, he won't mind. When you wake, please take a bath or shower—I don't care which one but you STINK—and come downstairs for breakfast.

"Chip watched you most of the night before falling asleep himself. It was so strange, seeing him like that, so very… how do I say this. He reminds me so much of Shadow before we stopped the ARK from falling."

Sonic's eyes bugged out of his head. What a strange comparison to make!

"We'll talk about what to do over breakfast," the letter continued. "Just you and me and Chip. Yvon Fulbert—my assistant and formerly Professor Pickles'—will be stopping by later, and it will be up to you whether you want to include him.

"For what it's worth, I'm so glad to have you back. I've missed you so much, and I still love you, though not the same way. I hope that doesn't hurt you too much, but given the way you ran away from me, I don't think it'll be any spines off your back. You are my hero, my inspiration, and I never doubted for a second that what's happened is not your fault. But together, maybe we can finally make it all right.

"See you at breakfast.

"-Dr. Amy Rose"

Sonic smiled, grabbing the clothes she'd lain out with the hand in which he wasn't holding the letter. He wandered around until he found a bathroom, a lovely old-fashioned Spagonian wash closet with supplies set out. He spotted a blue towel, soap and shampoo, and a bottle of oil on the counter. He sat the clothes down next to the sink and opened the bottle, sniffing it, sighing at the familiar scent of orange blossom. Only another hedgehog could possibly understand the need to anoint. He capped the bottle and started the water in the bathtub. He hoped he had time for a nice, hot, long bath.

hr

She flipped the pancakes into the air artfully, humming a sweet tune, occasionally muttering to follow her. Chip was just happy to hear someone singing. Music was special to him, so old and yet so new. He didn't recognize a single song, and yet everything seemed to touch him on a deep level, far away. He danced in the air as she hummed, unable to focus on setting the table as she asked.

She was beautiful, standing there, pink spines glimmering in the harsh morning light. She was wearing pants today, which means there wouldn't be any confusion about whether it was ok to look up her skirt, but the pants hugged every curve of her legs with a tight gentleness. She still wore the dress over it, this one with a slightly different white lace pattern on the neck than the one the day before, and her black pocketed vest was now dark blue. He could see why Sonic kind of liked her, and why Sonic had muttered her name as he slept, even as Chip lay on his chest.

The doorbell rang, and she mouthed to Chip, "Hide," her flat, white teeth flashing. She motioned to her table, lifting the long cloth carefully. Chip flew under and peeked toward the door through the thin lace lining.

When she answered the door, there were footsteps and shouts, mostly Amy shouting, "Get out of my house!" A pair of green robes came into view, and after, her boots.

"You have no right to just storm into my house! Get back out and knock and ask to be let in like a civilized person!"

"We can't be seen at the door," answered a nasal voice. "It would endanger you, Dr. Rose, for Dark Gaia to know we came to you."

"Then maybe you ought to have shown up in common clothes! What's the matter, afraid Spagonians might tell Dark Gaia, 'oh yeah, I saw this guy with two different color eyes go into Dr. Rose's house?'"

The one figure took a step back. "You recognized me?"

"Of course I recognized you and your perpetual sinus infection," Amy hissed. "This green cloak crap is a load of bull. You're all so transparent. So what on earth do you want in my house that couldn't have been e-mailed me by your lackey on my staff?" She added coldly, "Did Maria tell you something?"

"Don't make fun of me!" the man answered, stepping closer to the table. "We're here to tell you that there are simultaneous reports of someone seeing Shadow in Apotos and Mazuri with his check-ins for the guard in Eggmanland. It's possible he teleported back and forth, but more likely—"

"I'm looking for Sonic," Amy noted, "And if I find him I can't exactly hide him, can I?"

"So why do you have two table settings?" Chip could see a hand going toward the table.

"Yvon's supposed to come for breakfast," Amy excused, "if Dark Gaia doesn't have him hung over again."

"Amy." The one cloaked figure approached her, taking a hand. "You know how much it would mean to Ivo to know Sonic is alive. You—"

She slapped his hand away. "Listen, you old coot, I'm Dr. Rose to you. If Sonic really is alive, it's up to him who knows. If he appears on my doorstep I won't betray his trust, not even to the Emperor. "

"That's treason."

"Says the GUN Commander of the United Federation."

Chip saw the man raise a hand to slap her, but then he stopped, wavering.

"That'd better be a high five, boat eyes," came Sonic's voice at the other side of the room.

"Sonic!" The stuffy voice gasped.

"That's right! And you guys are dressed all green and stuff, like you're cult of Light Gaia. That right?"

Chip couldn't see, but he figured they nodded. "Legion of Light," another voice corrected.

"Which means you're dressed up like my best friend threatening a lady. No one knows Chip like I do, and I can tell you that he'd never threaten anyone, not even someone who ran their mouth too much." He saw Sonic's bare feet appear near the tablecloth, going toe to toe with the robed figures boots. "If you don't want me to pop in and pay your portly little leader in the green robes a visit to tell him what you were doing… If you don't want me to let, maybe, I don't know, the _guy you worship_ have at him for giving this mission to an impulsive jerk who almost killed a good guy before… Then I suggest you turn around and go about your business."

"Yes, sir, Chosen, sir." The green figures turned and left.

"So… now you're unveiled." Amy said, trailing off. Chip flew out from under the table to find Sonic standing there, naked save a blue towel around his waist.

"I guess so. You wouldn't have a pair of my old shoes lying around, would you, Amy?"

She grinned. "Help yourself to pancakes, I'll find a pair."

hr

The old man hovered over the phone, hand shaking. Should he call his Emperor, do his duty to the cult? But Light Gaia's own natural emissary had attacked his very presence there. It was true that Sonic was known to be infected by Dark Gaia, and yet he never once gave into it, and yet he was followed at every turn by the being ultimately revealed to be their savior, their creator. And wasn't Eggman the one who had caused all of this trouble in the first place? The one who had cracked open the world, launched Sonic from orbit, tried to exploit the energy of Dark Gaia for his own ends? The former Commander felt a tear welling up in his brown eye at the conflict he felt he betrayal. None of the heroes had ever lived up to themselves. Not Maria, not the people on the ARK, and not even Sonic, or Chip, or Ivo.

So now he asked himself: why is it that Ivo is so focused on knowing if Sonic's alive? He had known Ivo since they were both boys, on a supervised visit with the remains of Maria's family. He knew Ivo was one for spectacle and symbolism… but over the years he had learned that those always took second place to tactics in a crisis not of his own making. He had a reason to want to know.

Remembering the news, remembering the site of impact he'd seen in Apotos, remembering her face the last time he saw her, remembering Shadow's contrition about the terrible things that happened, he realized something. He thought of that young soldier who'd told him where to find Shadow. What would that young man had felt if the Commander had put a bullet in Shadow's brain, and no one had been there to destroy the comet?

"I won't destroy the world," he decided, "Because one man needs a shrink." The GUN Commander put down the phone and walked out the door, shedding his green cloak on the way. There was a café on the corner and he'd never had Spagonian coffee.

hr

He still didn't feel like eating, but he found what was in front of him much easier to stomach than anything offered him in a long time.

Sonic picked up his fork and knife and cut into his eggs, trying to focus on the woman in front of him instead of the food on his plate. It would get easier to eat in a few weeks… though it would get harder first. He shoveled the yellow, fluffy scrambled yolk into his mouth as Amy talked, words issuing from her painted pink lips.

"So you're sure you're comfortable with being out?" She asked, leaning forward as she nibbled on a muffin, pink spines falling in her face.

Sonic nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Chip trying to hide the fact that he was eating hashbrowns with his hands instead of a fork. Sonic took a bite of bacon.

"Ok. So I'm going to tell you what the plan is." Amy cut into her pancake and took in a bite, sweeping it to the side of her flat, pearly teeth to speak. "What's happening. Eggman dispatched us out to various Shrine locations in the hopes of meeting you. Our departure orders and locations are based on where he and I thought you would go. I saw little reason to mislead him here; he's gotten the best of us before and I figured we could distract him with the truth. Your next stop after me is to Holoska, then Chun-nan, Shamar, Adabat, and finally Eggmanland. I know Cream is supposed to be the next link in the chain."

"What if I weren't here?" He sampled some toast, and, enjoying its relative lightness in his mouth, began nibbling on the piece in earnest. He thought he would enjoy watching her eyes narrow at the thought, but instead he found it breaking his heart. Was that a glimmer of a tear forming? He decided not to remind her of that possibility in the future.

Amy sighed. "Then we would have to take care of the emerald ourselves." She pulled an emerald from her blouse, not the activated false emerald Sonic had homed in on, but a dead one, probably violet, by the look. It glistened in the morning sun, casting a pink glow on her white gloves. "Find Chip, get his help, and then send him on the next stop."

"And after? When Dark Gaia and Light Gaia fight inside the Earth?"

Amy pondered, resting her chin on her fist, her elbow on the table. "So… what exactly happened down there? That would determine the plan."

"We fell… and fell, forever. Dark Gaia sucked all the Gaia Force out of me, and turned me back into this. Chip… he summoned all the temples around him, like a GUN mech, and fought Dark Gaia until I recovered." Sonic grinned. "Knuckles told me you'd guessed that. I'm real impressed, Amy." He watched her eyes light up, her smile finally reach her ears. "I always knew you were really clever, and creative, but I never knew you'd put it together like that. Anyway… I used the temples to attack Dark Gaia's eyes, but I screwed up a chaos control and fell. I was a couple rings short of going super…"

Amy thought, pursing her lips. "So you'd need all of us down there."

"Only the ones who can chaos control or fly. Or send me rings."

Amy poured some milk in a glass from the pitcher. He watched her bare bicep twitch, as if the weight and the angle were just a little too much for her. "I'll take a crash course in mech piloting once you move on."

Sonic choked on a crust, coughed, and swallowed. "You're not following me?"

Amy frowned, looking away, green eyes downcast on tile. "Sonic, Shadow needs me right now. He needs me a lot more than you do. He told Eggman he should abdicate and kill himself."

"He… he really said that?" Sonic put his head in his hands, trying not to see her, or him.

"And no, it wasn't Dark Gaia. It was apparently said of his own… free will. Broad daylight. I'm not sure what Eggman's going to do with him, but he's assured me he doesn't blame me one bit."

Sonic laughed, suddenly trying to imagine Shadow acting like Pickle's old assistant, looking up. "But… Amy, that sounds just like him!"

She threw a strawberry at Sonic's head and squealed, "No, no it doesn't! Shadow would never tell someone to kill himself! He'd pull out a gun and do it for them, or keep it to himself!" Amy crossed her arms in indignation, insulted.

Sonic resumed his toast, considering. "So… so he would. Yeah, you've got a point there. Huh."

hr

It went too easily, too well.

She already had the tablet—she'd gathered it after last time. Both halves neatly tucked away in her lab for years, dusty. She set Yvon, who looked much worse than he did a decade before, with sagging eyes and a mean grimace, to caring for the lab and they departed, through the new Gaia temple toward the old shrine. She spent the sunlit trip telling Sonic of the private exploits of his former friends, her life with Shadow, their arguments about whether to try and conceive. He told her beneath the crumbling aqueduct of all the wonderful people he'd met and things he'd seen, the lives he'd saved. Chip had nothing to share but listened quietly, sitting in the grass, patiently, eager to know more. They picnicked near a fountain beneath a pair of lovely towers, they napped in a patch of trees in a corner of the street. When he changed, she held his claws in her delicate hands, telling him it'd be over soon. When she awoke and realized she'd lost track of the date, he punched her in just the right part of her back to dull the pain—though only after her repeated reassurance that no, he wouldn't hurt her if he hit the muscles just right. It was when Chip fell asleep in the sunlight on the second day of their journey, the shrine just in view beyond the cottage roofs, that they finally had a chance to speak their minds.

"He's different this time," Amy noted, pursing her lips and watching the sprite sleep.

"Well, aren't we all?" Sonic shrugged, crossing his arms and sitting down beneath a tree, eyes on her.

"He's not as nice. And he stays up later." She sounded like her old self there, he thought, without sophistication, without that coldness she'd built up. A reminder of how far she'd come. He was proud of her. He was…

"The balance has shifted. I think before, Light was in control and Dark was the challenger. Now it's the other way.

"And it's fairly clear," Amy noted, sitting next to him and adjusting her slightly longer skirt, "that Light is linked to daylight and Dark, to night."

"Right. He told me that, last time."

Amy looked over at Chip, saying nothing, brow furrowed, but Sonic understood what she said.

"I'm not going to decide who he is and what he's worth based on ten years ago and a couple psychedelic spectral enemies. It hurts enough, people doing that to me."

"I think this is more complicated than we ever knew, Sonic."

"What did we do that wasn't, Amy?" He leaned over a moment, his face close to hers, eyes shining in the afternoon sun, before pulling away. "The only difference is, this time, we see how screwed up things have gotten going in."

hr

The Earth was still shaking, Spagonia still settling down to join with Mazuri on its Southern border, when they returned to Amy's house. Night had long since come, and Sonic's claws were shaking even after the trail mix she'd given him—or what little he would eat of it.

"You aren't leaving for Holoska until morning, Mister," she scolded. "I don't know what's wrong but you don't look very well at all."

He was hobbling after her on all fours, tripping occasionally from the tremors in his front and back legs. His black cloak was folded neatly inside Amy's pack, so much a tripping hazard it was in his current state. He was staring off ahead of him, barely listening.

Amy walked up to the door and began searching her bag for her key. "When did you start feeling sick?" She asked.

"Right before the change." He sat down on her doorstep with a thud.

As Amy reached to insert the key into the lock, however, the door opened, revealing a tall human with brown hair, picking up a reddish hue from years of Dark Gaia exposure. His face was contorted into a frown, his pale eyes glazed with the night. Sonic and Amy both were sure they could smell wine on his breath.

"Yvon," Amy snarled. "I've asked you not to come to my house at night. You know what you're like."

Yvon sneered at her. "The men in the cloaks made me. They wanted me to give you a message."

Amy took a step back. "And what was that?"

"They left some clothes for Sonic, nice to see you again, by the way, jackass," Yvon spat. "And they wanted me to tell you that Sonic's identity is in his control. They said that they are at his service. Don't see why a guy who failed the world would get so mu-"

Yvon bent forward in his taunting, and his face plowed into the oncoming hammer with a satisfying squeak. He fell.

"We've had this conversation before, Yvon. There will be no Sonic-bashing in this zone unless you want to fight me. Now go clean yourself up. I'm about done with you here, and you're coming with me to Eggmanland tomorrow."

He got up and scrambled out of the house, running past Sonic. Amy lead him into the house. "He's getting worse, but he's indispensible as an assistant. I see why Pickle, Gaia rest his soul, was so reliant on him. In fact, if it weren't for the distraction of Dark Gaia, he'd be the Doctor of Gaia Studies, not me."

She dropped her pack at the door and lead Sonic off, up the stairs, to a little bedroom. It was blue and white; royal blue sheets with a white and blue quilt in gold trim; white walls and a blue picture. The bed was small, but more than wide enough for two furries. Was that her goal? Was she…?

"You'll sleep here tonight. I would have put you here the first night, but then you might have realized I what I was doing. I'll be down the hall if you need anything, but unless it's an emergency, give me an hour to call Shadow and Eggman." Amy knelt down and gave Sonic a hug. "I'm so worried, Sonic. I… I can't get you back after all this time only to lose you again. You need to rest." Then she frowned. "Are your eyes watering?"

"They've been itching since we started back."

"Maybe you're catching a cold. I'll get you some food, and you can take a bath if you want, and then I'll call Shadow, ok?"

She headed downstairs, and Sonic sighed, slinking off toward the bathroom. Chip tried to follow, only to have the door shut softly in his face.

Sonic stripped away his shoes, his socks, his cloak, and walked over to the bathtub, turning the hot water on. He reached up to the wall and pressed a few buttons on the insect-like clock radio ("Made in Eggmanland") until music started to play. It was a song he recognized, a song Shadow used to listen to, one he always said was about Sonic. It wasn't then, but it was now.

He turned the volume up as high as it would go, and then settled into the water, letting it seem to sear at his scarred flesh. Then he stuck his arm in his mouth, bit down hard, and screamed, unheard.

He hoped.

hr

Normally when he dreamed, and it wasn't a replay of his failings, she was there. She would ask him for her help, and he would help her as they worked through every story ever told. She'd pout and she'd plead and she'd chide and she'd joke, and she would just look so sad standing there, so in need of help. And then she betrayed him, every time, wind in her violet hair, a flower or a ring in hand. He'd told Shadow about her, and his opinion was that she was his mother, or perhaps a symbol of the world and what it had done to him. Sonic was inclined to go with the latter; he was pretty sure he wasn't half human.

But this time it was Amy in his dreams, asking for help, begging and pleading, and when the time came to betray, she stood by his side. Then she was drying him off, leading him out of the tub to bed, where a tray of chili dogs was waiting. He ate them in a daze, unsure if he were awake or asleep, unwilling to decide. She sat by his side, a worried gleam in her eyes, hands wringing in her lap, helpless. He wanted to help her. He wanted to help her help him. He wanted to help her with that…

And then something beeped in her pocket, and a tinny song played, of Shadow singing, an old sad song. "Excuse me," she apologized, pulling out a phone and flipping it open. "Shadow, honey? Are you ok—" She dashed out of the room.

He reached to scream into his fist again, only to find a bandage around his arm. He lay awake instead, trying not to admit to himself, trying to think of Merlina or Shahra or Miss Utterson instead, trying to ignore the distant shouting.

hr

"What were you thinking?"

She flipped on the video screen instead, sitting down at her desk.

"I don't know what came over me," Shadow pleaded, looking like his old self, neat, round fingers and flat teeth, pounding the table with clawless fists.

"The truth, huh?" She frowned. She of course, knew that was the truth, it was how they all felt, but who would dare say it with how effectively he'd culled all rebellion? There had only been one execution at first, but coupled with the suppressors, with Shadow and Rouge and Knuckles getting sick, there was only one needed.

He looked at her, pleading, and she adjusted the set, trying to make the colors right, so he'd look as if he were there.

"Shadow, I can't help you now. I don't know where this crazy resentment of Dr. Robotnik has come from after all he's done for us," she lied. "I'm going to plead on your behalf, of course, you're under a lot of stress and you've been sick since the changes started again." Finally she stopped turning the dial. "Shadow, what color is the light there? You look funny."

He blinked. "Amy, this is our bedroom. It's the same color as always?"

She peered at him closely before finally announcing her finding: "Shadow, your eyes are brown!"

"Are they?" He ran over to a mirror. "They are. They weren't last night…"

hr

She cried when he left, tears flowing down her pale cheeks, green eyes gleaming. He cried too. "I'm so glad we can finally really be friends, Amy," he told her. "When this is over, we'll find time. You and Shad and me, long as we make it out alive."

She reached up and adjusted the blue cloak he now wore. "We will. And I won't be too mad at Shadow for keeping you from me. I understand why you wanted privacy. But hurry. Cream is waiting."

He stepped into the teleporter and took one last look at her, wide mouth grinning through shining tears. Always finding the best in life. Did that make Shadow the best?


	5. Chapter 4: Sanity's Edge

Chapter 4: Sanity's Edge

Author's Note: FFNet ate my formatting after a quick edit. Sorry.

* * *

When he teleported into the village, she wasn't there.

When he walked over to the elder and asked him where he could find someone, she wasn't there.

When the little girl he'd met ten years before told him where he had to go and hoisted a toddler on her hip, she wasn't there.

When he set out toward the Temple, she wasn't there.

Cream wasn't there. Nor was…

hr

He was shivering, so Chip landed on his head, hugging his top spine tightly. "I'll keep you warm, Sonic."

"Thanks, Chip."

Chip slid down to look into Sonic's green eyes, shining in the cold, his face seeming almost as blue as the rest of him as they made their way down the mountain. "What's been eating you? Ever since you got sick at Amy's house you've been all sad and stuff. And you bit your hand."

"I fell into it."

Chip glared.

"I just had to scream and I didn't want you guys to hear, ok? Look, this is hard. I had all these friends, and in a moment they were all gone. And now they're back and there's just so much. All the missed time. All the guilt. Finding out they've become these powerful people while I'm gone and I'm not even as good as I was when I left." Sonic spat into the snow.

Chip frowned, sliding down further. "I'm sure you're better than you were!"

"No. I'm even more of a jerk than I used to be."

Chip flew up, in front of Sonic, hovering in front of him. "But you're wiser than you were, aren't you? And you know… what you want out of life better?"

"I guess." Sonic frowned, but then stopped in his tracks.

"Come on Sonic! Cheer up! We'll get through this and then you can get with Amy and—"

"I don't want to get with Amy, but do you hear that? And did you feel that energy?"

Chip cocked his head to the side. "Do I hear what?" He could see the mountain over them, snow seeming to waver in the distant heights under the cool blue sunlight.

"That sound. I hear something… I don't know what it is."

"Is it that snow moving?" Chip pointed behind Sonic.

"What?" Sonic turned suddenly and swore. "Avalanche!" Sonic grabbed Chip around the waist and ran off, pulling him close to his own chest like a football.

"Avalanche! What's an Avalanche!"

"Snow trying to kill us!" Sonic panted, leaping over a fallen tree.

"Why would it try to kill us?" Chip demanded, indignant.

"It doesn't think, Chip! It just falls because a vibration in the mountain set it loose!"

Sonic ducked behind a rock and continued running. Now Chip was starting to hear the hum, no, the roar of the snow coming down on them.

"Sonic! It's going to get us!"

"I know! Shut up so I can run!"

As roar became deafening, Chip could feel the snow starting to reach him, as the feeling of doom set in, Sonic suddenly veered to the right, and everything went dark. It took Chip a moment to adjust from light to none to see that they were in a glimmering cave of ice, shining in the dim light… until, that is, the avalanche covered the entrance, snow coming in toward them with nowhere else to go. Sonic kept running for what seemed like miles in the darkness before he collapsed, panting, sliding across the ice.

"What was that?" Chip asked, landing on him.

"Deliberate. That was deliberate. There was an emerald involved, I could feel it. Someone," he panted, "is trying to kill me."

hr

They arrived quickly, thanks to the teleport. What he was not expecting, however, was to be routed directly to the throne room. Yvon shivered in… something. At first, as his heart sped up, he thought it was fear, but then the pressure in his face told him it was hate instead.

She, however, seemed completely unphased, even relieved. She bowed low. "Your Imperial Majesty, I thank you for your warm welcome in the light of my husband's indiscretion. He has told me his side of the story, and now, if it pleases you, I would like to hear yours."

Yvon bowed too, looking under his eyebrow at the bespectacled man, trying not to growl. Doing this to Amy when she had something far more important to pay attention to…

"Oh? And what, pray tell, would my side of the story matter, Dr. Rose?"

Amy frowned. "Majesty, permission to speak freely?"

"Always granted, Dr. Rose. Given your husband's indiscretion I suppose you are my most loyal follower."

"If Sonic were the king and had said and done about Shadow's big mouth the things you've done, I'd have already smitten him down to the ground." She hissed. "The only reason I haven't done that to you is because I completely understand where you're coming from. So I'm going to say this. I want to know what happened to put it in context, but I know Shadow. If he really wanted you dead, he would have already done it."

Ivo leaned forward, glasses glinting blue.

"Shadow, who thinks nothing of blowing up the whole world for Maria. Shadow, who stole a chaos emerald right out of the ship we took to the comet. Who fought Sonic in front of the aliens, not because he liked the aliens, but because he wanted Sonic to know that he was the ultimate." Amy took a step forward. "Shadow is NOT afraid of you!" she shouted, throwing her arms out, "and if he thought you need to die he would take care of it! But he's confided in me," Amy added, speaking more softly, "That he hopes you live a good long while once it's fixed so you can see what a farce your empire is."

"And you feel the same as him?"

"No." Amy growled. "You have grown as a person so much since your coup. You've changed for the better, even more than I have. But you still lapse back to the man who kidnapped me on the Little Planet all those years ago. You still have a mean streak, an ego that has to be fed. I beg of you, don't sacrifice my husband, YOUR COUSIN, to that ego. He's not himself. He's sick, and he's tired, and he's… changing."

The Emperor stood, buttons glimmering as the light changed. She saw his hand twitch, and a number of soldiers came into the room. "And tell me, Amy, what happens if I don't give in to your pleas?"

"I'm powerless, your majesty," she answered meekly, softly, looking down. Yvon, however, could see the grin on her face, seeming almost fanged despite the bluntness of her teeth. "But… I don' think our savior would be too happy. I mean, you already tried to kill him so many times." Amy shifted a foot back shyly. "If you imprisoned or executed his most loyal servant," she added. "I'm certain he wouldn't take that sitting down."

There was a collective gasp from the guards and from the Emperor; his scepter rattled to the floor and rolled to Amy's feet. "It can't be," he said, though Yvon thought he seemed to be smiling.

"It is." Amy looked up, raising her hands into the air, smiling as she stared up into the mock sun of the throne room. "Sonic the Hedgheog lives!"

The guards erupted into cheers, and Eggman stood silent a long time. Finally, he sighed with relief. "I… I see. How good to hear. I only hope he can forgive me for what I've done."

"I'm sure he'd be more inclined to forgive you if you showed him some signs that you were changed. "

"Very well. In light of Shadow's comments I can't allow him to continue to be my guard. However, he has expressed his fullest confidence in our mission." Eggman turned to his guards. "I hereby decree that Shadow is to assume the royal duty of the protection of the Gaia Temple of Eggmanland. Among his duties will be the escort of the Hero of Gaia to the Emerald Shrine. I also hereby forbid him to be in my presence without the escort of Dr. Rose and a guard of my choosing until his health and well-being are examined and established to my and Dr. Rose's satisfaction."

Amy dropped to her knees. "My eternal gratitude, my liege."

"But tell me, Amy," he said, approaching her, kneeling by her. "Tell me, as protégé to mentor. Why did you not tell me of his arrival when you first discovered it?"

Amy looked up to him. "Ivo," she cooed softly, "How could we know how you would take it, or how he would? We had to wait until we knew at least one of you was ready. We're your friends, Ivo." She reached out and took his hand, rubbing the back of it with her thumb. "We wanted make it right. I'm just sorry I had to let it go to save Shadow like that. But that's what Sonic would want me to do."

He smiled, glasses falling on his nose, revealing teary teal eyes. "All the terrible things I've done to you, and still you find friendship in your heart."

"All the terrible things I did following Sonic, and he told me he was proud of me." She wiped a tear from her own face. "Least I can do is help another sinner who put himself before love."

They both stood, smiling, and the Emperor rubbed a hand over his bald head. "My cousin needs your caring ministrations, Dr. Rose. Please see to him now. You may go."

"Thank you my liege." She curtsied again. "We remember your generosity." She turned and marched out of the throne room, and Yvon followed her closely as she went to her quarters in the palace. As they marched into the cool blue space, through to a red upholstered office, she pulled a barreled pin from her spines and inserted it into the computer at the desk in the office area. An image of half of the Emperor's left eye and his temple popped onto the screen.

"look at that, Yvon. It's teal. His eyes are a different color. Just like…"

He nodded, understanding. "So all that stuff about forgiveness and being his friend was just…"

"Oh Yvon." Amy chuckled, putting her hands on her hips. "Just because I don't trust him as far as I can throw him doesn't mean I don't care!"

hr

He swore as the ice rained down around him, sharp, piercing.

Beneath him, clinging to his churning stomach, was Chip, screaming furiously. The cold ice burned at his tender claws as he ran across the ice and snow. Behind him were crystalline screams as chunks of ice rained down. Ahead of him in the snow every so often he'd catch sight of a little dart…

He leapt onto an ice floe in the river running through the cave, jumping off it, trying to make the next, screaming in terror. He tried to banish the thought of the water from his mind, not to see himself sinking, feel it in his lungs. He tried not to think of the labyrinth, the chemical plant, the aqueduct on Angel Island…

A dart stuck in his back and he screamed, missing the floe, catching it with his claws as water washed in around his spines and fur. Chip screamed as he hit the ice, and Sonic scrambled to his feet, running to the end of the floe and jumping again. This time, however, he climbed up top and grabbed a chunk of ice, throwing it at his attacker. He saw the little blue ball hit darker blue figure, which plummeted toward the ground with a pitiful little scream before flying away.

"Chip, can you pull that dart out of my back?" He asked.

Chip flew off his stomach and went around to grab the dart. "Sure," he said.

"Man, that was weird."

"What was?" There was a sudden, searing pain in Sonic's back, and he screamed.

"Didn't you hear her voice? The assassin was—is—a woman. "

hr

"Tell me of your progress, Cream."

"I haven't been able to find him, father," She responded over the screen, frowning. With the furry hood around her face he could barely see it, except for her little orange eyes, gleaming sadly. "There was an avalanche, that slowed me, and a partial collapse in the cave in which I think they've taken shelter."

"You wouldn't be lying to me like the others, would you?" he tried his best to smile sweetly, to pierce through the hate he knew she felt.

"Of course not, father. It would be rude to lie," was her response, along with an eerie, cheery smile he knew she could not possibly mean.

Moments like this made him miss Ergo and Gamma.

"You're a good daughter and a wonderful princess, Cream. I am so proud of you."

She pulled her coat a little tighter around herself. "Thank you, father."

He studied her sweet, false, smiling face, and tried to smile warmly, tried to be proud. She really was a model princess. He knew she didn't care a whit for him, but he hoped his approval would at least mean something. It was as he studied her brow, her eyes for some sign that she was pleased when he noticed something strange.

"Daughter… why is there blue on your forehead?"

"I don't know…" she whined, suddenly seeming genuinely shaken. He saw her shoulder twitch and the camera began to shake back and forth, too even to be natural. "There's an earthquake! I gotta go! Bye Daddy!" She never called him Daddy.

The transmission ended.

"What on earth is that girl up to?"

hr

He lay on a blanket in the snow, shivering blue against red against blue.

"Ok, Chip, in the pack there should be a little packet of antiseptic wipes," Sonic coached. "I need you to find them."

Chip dug through the bag until he found the paper packaging. "OK, what do I do with it?"

"Tear it open and wipe the wound with it." Sonic stiffened beneath Chip's feet. "I'll brace myself, maybe even cry out, because that hurts."

Chip didn't like the idea of hurting Sonic, but it was necessary, right? So he pressed the wipe into the gaping, bleeding hole. Sonic screamed, twitching beneath him, and Chip gasped, and pressed harder. Sonic was so big and scary and he was able to hurt him? It was kind of cool. And didn't Sonic say he'd failed him last time, that Sonic was the reason he couldn't remember now? So maybe he deserved it. So maybe Chip would press a little harder, and Sonic would twitch a little more.

"OW! CHIP! STOP!"

But it's so fun?

"CHIP!" Sonic bucked up, sending Chip flying. "Ouch! Chip, what were you doing?"

Chip pulled his head out of the snow. "I don't know. I… I just… you said it was supposed to hurt," he lied, "And I was supposed to clean it, so I started scrubbing. "

Sonic propped himself up on his elbows. "What the hell, Chip? Don't… Don't make any more guesses, OK? You could hurt me."

"Sure, Sonic," Chip murmured sheepishly, oddly satisfied that he'd put Sonic in a position of weakness.

"Now, could you please put that gauze on the wound?" Sonic lay back down, and Chip flew back over. He looked at the little hole, before finally saying, "Wouldn't one of those little sticky ones work?"

"If you think it's small enough, go for it, buddy," Sonic offered, nervous.

So Chip grabbed one of the little sticky ones and peeled the paper. He hoped he'd get to take it off Sonic when it was healed, so he could see him squirm again. As he peeled off the waxy covering, he wondered what it was that made him feel so angry… angry with Sonic in particular. He liked Sonic, he'd love Sonic to be his friend, and he decided he'd stop anyone who tried to hurt him. But… he wanted to hurt him. All to himself. Wanted power, wanted Sonic to be in his control, to be a part of him…

"Chip? Buddy? You gonna put that bandage on?"

He pressed the bandage onto Sonic's back gently, rubbing his fingers over its two adhesive wings. "Sorry. I was afraid I was going to hurt you again."

"Hey, given what I put you through, I guess it's fair."

Chip smiled to himself, letting a small sigh of relief. See, it's ok! Even Sonic thinks so.

hr

She made her way through the caves, over the river, trying to find him.

She hopped from floe to floe, carrying herself on the drafts with her wide ears, brown winter clothing stowed carefully in the blue pack on her back. Camouflage was important on this mission; she couldn't allow him to see. Not even to see her coming, lest he might see who she were. And if he were to escape and remember identity, she'd be in a world of trouble, friendless and alone. Except for Chocola, of course, but he wasn't much conversation.

She didn't expect something to hit her in the back, searing through the blue suit she wore into her bare flesh, burning. It startled her so much she plummeted into the flowing, brackish water. She swam toward the surface desperately, shivering as she went, and pulled herself up onto one of the icebergs, looking around for the offender.

Floating in the air surrounded by sunlight in a hole in the cavern was a beautiful creature, like a bird, an angel, floating, made of beautiful white light. She struggled to focus in the cold, looking, to finally discover that it appeared to be a tiny phoenix, like the kind she used to give to Cheese to make him a strong chao. It looked at her with strange green eyes and swung its tail, sending a blast of emerald light in her direction.

Cream screamed as she was hit, dropping below the surface, back into the freezing water. As she surfaced this time, more easily, she tried to wrap her mind around what she saw. It was a phoenix, but behaving like one of the Dark Gaia creatures. It was light, white and green, it wasn't the same color as the evil. As she wrangled with it in her mind, she pulled herself back onto the shore, only to find a strange white giant, like an angel, standing in the sunlight, glimmering, hand pointed at her like a sword of doom.

She pulled a dart and threw it at the creature, only to watch it go completely through as if nothing had happened. Then it took its turn, slapping at her with its grotesque sword-like hand, sending her flying with a quake of pain and splashing into the cold glass water. She surfaced with more effort to find more and more of the monsters pulling themselves out of the snow, glowing white and green, glimmering in the midday sun as it filtered through a thin layer of ice atop the cave.

She ran into the shadows.

They didn't follow.

"I've got to get out of here," she decided, and ran away.

hr

So they made their way through the cave, finally finding their way to the last door before the shrine. She watched him assemble the tablet, watched the tiny creature work some kind of magic that opened the doors. She threw a dart and watched him jump as it breezed past him as it opened, lodging itself in the shrine walls in front of him.

But she was the one surprised as Sonic turned, smiling, apparently unshaken.

"Hey Cream! Long time, no see," he sneered. "Mind tellin' me why you're playing pin the spine on the werehog?"

The rabbit didn't answer, only grunting as she flung a dart at him. He caught it a claw, discarding it.

"Not a great way to greet an old friend. Did Eggman send you here to finish me off? Want all the glory to himself?"

She growled at him. "He'd kill me if he knew what I were doing."

"So why are you, Cream? What happened to the polite little hero I knew?"

She whipped Chocola out of her pack and flung him at Sonic. Unprepared, he fell to his feet, grunting. She stepped toward him confidently, breathing deep, teeth bared, wiping the blue paint from her brow.

"Choco?" the chao asked, looking at Sonic.

"This is all your fault, Sonic" she growled, voice staying level despite the rapid heaving of her chest.

"It wasn't intentional, I promise you that." He climbed to his feet, setting Chocola down gently. The little brown chao scurried away from the fight.

Cream pulled out more of her darts. "You left us alone… with him."

"I didn't mean to, Cream."

She advanced on him. "My mother had to marry him to save us. He killed the vice president. They all started falling at his feet, begging forgiveness, begging help. Knuckles was first."

Sonic thought about revealing the genius of Knuckles' plan, but decided not to out his true allegiance. "You guys did what you thought you had to do to save the world in my absence. And you did a good job! I'm pretty happy with old Egghead's work."

Cream flew at him, lunging, wing-ears flapping. She stuck out her fist to throw a punch, and it caught him unprepared, right in the jaw. She looked at his face and something seemed to snap in his green eyes; a dark look came onto his face, a snarl on his white lips. He grabbed both of her ears, squeezing with his claws, swinging his arms and whipping her down.

She screamed and moaned, pulling her eyes up as quickly as possible to see the look on his face. His expression seemed to melt as she lay there, looking, just as she planned.

"When I fix the world, Cream, you can do whatever you want to me. Maybe even kill me." He walked over, planting a boot into her chest. "But if you kill me, Knuckles will kill you. And if Knuckles kills you, Eggman will have him executed. And if he does that, Rouge will assassinate him, and his followers will kill her. And there will be no one left to turn Eggmanland back into the U.F., because Amy and Shadow will be too sad that you and I are dead. And your mother will be crying, and Dark Gaia will win."

She spat at him, hitting his leg. "How do you know Dark Gaia will win if you're dead? You couldn't stop him last time."

"I've had ten years to figure out what I did wrong, and this time my friends will be at my side." He lifted his foot. "Will you be among them? Or will you be just another enemy I have to stop? " Sonic took a deep breath. "I don't care that you're a girl, or that you're only sixteen, or that you were a little girl calling everyone Mister last time I saw you, Cream. Anyone who can hurt me that bad and keep at it when I try to save the world is going to be my enemy."

She tried to kick him, but he caught her foot in a claw, digging in. She looked at his claw on her foot, trying to figure out the best way to tear his fingers from their bases when she noticed it: a bandage, wrapped around his wrist and the lower part of the claw, tattered and torn, bloody on the wrist side.

He tried to kill himself, she thought.

She thought back to all the time they'd spent together, with the other teams, with Blaze. His laughing, smiling face, she thought he never cared about anything, it didn't matter. But then she looked at that bandage again, realizing here was something at stake for Sonic, thinking of how horrified Tails would be.

"Mr. Sonic!" She tore her foot from his claw, ignoring the pain raking down it, threw herself into his arms.

"Cream."

"I'm so sorry! I should never have… let me bandage you!"

hr

They were laughing and smiling together, working on fixing each other's wounds, chatting about old times. Chip could hardly believe that only a few minutes ago she'd been trying to kill him. It was like something broke in her heart, something that let her forgive. He didn't understand what it was that made her feel that way, what it was changed. He saw her look at Sonic's hand, the hand Amy had bandaged because he bit himself. When she had asked him, Sonic had murmured something about muffling a scream, something about a nightmare. How would a little nightmare, a little bandage, change her mind? He thought she must have had a pretty big reason to decide to kill him. He thought a lot of things.

"So I fell, and I could feel the magma burning," Sonic decided. "Then something lifted me up. I woke up in Apotos with burn scars and no idea where I was, and this little bracelet on my wrist." He held up his other claw, showing off a strange loop with a green orb on the end. "I… I think it was Chip's necklace. He left it with me, to protect me. He forgave me." Sonic smiled sheepishly.

"But you didn't forgive yourself," Cream added sadly.

"I still don't forgive myself. I didn't eat for a week. I just… wandered in the shadows, made my way back to Eggmanland." Sonic shook his head. "I was going to throw myself at Eggman in one final fight, destroy him, but then I saw what he was doing with the Gaia Generators—now they're called suppressors. It's like, he was doing a better job stopping Dark Gaia than I was. I had given up hope when Shadow found me, hid me, forced some food down my throat. He kept me a secret from Amy for weeks, at my request."

Cream leaned forward. "Why would you keep yourself from Amy?"

Sonic sighed, lying back in the snow. "I thought she'd do what you did. I thought she'd kill me for failing her." He scratched his head. "But Shadow, he knew what I was going through. His fried Maria died in front of him and there wasn't a thing he could do. He was responsible and he was helpless. I felt like I could tell him anything."

Cream's eyes went wide, and Chip settled in the groove between Sonic's waist and arm with fear. This one was crazy, he decided; if she looked like she was going to wig out, he was going to get close to Sonic.

"What? You don't trust Shadow? I trust Shadow."

"Uh, Sonic?" She whimpered.

"What is it, Cream?"

"What's that thing coming out of the doorway?"

Chip and Sonic turned to see a great dragon coming through the shrine door at them.

"Not the Moray again!" Sonic stood.

"What's a Moray?" Cream and Chip asked together.

The creature stood up at full height, revealing its lack of legs. As it did, Sonic narrated, "It's some kind of freaky eel thing, only this one is like a legendary thing. It was possessed by Dark Gaia last time…"

It came out into the light to be seen, glimmering a beautiful pale green, smooth surfaced and shining. Then, like a hammer, it threw itself down near Sonic and Chip, and the two rolled to the side to avoid it.

"What is this thing?"

"It's a temple guardian!" Sonic ran over to the base where it stuck out of the ice and began slashing at it with his claws. "Cream, I want you throw your darts at it! Chip, keep us—"

The creature threw Sonic out into the sunlight filtering in from above. With a horrified shout he began to change before Chip's eyes, switching from the werehog into the hedgehog of daytime.

Cream took that as her cue, leaping into the air and driving a pair of darts into the creature's shining eyes. It roared and bucked her off, but Chip was ready, swinging Sonic's bag into its head. That gave Sonic time to kick a ball of stone into its face.

"We're going to beat it!" Cream shouted, descending upon it from above and raking darts down its side.

Sonic ran into the shadows toward it, fighting to continue as the change came over him… but the creature retreated, roaring. Finally Sonic announced, "Where did it go?" But that was all he could say before he collapsed in the snow, laughing. "It doesn't matter. Let's fix Holoska."

It was Cream this time, who carried the emerald into the Shrine, and Cream who placed the dark blue gem onto the altar. Cream carried Sonic out of the cave through a sunlit hole over head, and Cream apologized profusely.

And it was Sonic who rested in the arms of a hero, relieved to have been rescued, or was he? Chip could never read his face the way he could other people's.

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He thought he might vomit as the connection went through.

It wasn't nervousness,e xactly. He wasn't afraid of Eggman, or of what Eggman might do. No, in the end, Eggman wasn't the one who'd nearly roasted him. And yet he was afraid—of what? He thought of a half remembered dream in which Eggman crashed and Sonic laughed. He thought of that sick, satisfying, Dark Gaia fantasy of throwing Eggman into the depths of the Earth, hearing him scream in fear.

"He doesn't deserve this power, he's unworthy," came a thought from the depths of Sonic's mind, a thought that seemed to dance on the sunbeam filtering in the window.

A distressing thought, Sonic decided, from one who tries not to criticize others.

"I'm afraid of myself," he murmured voicelessly, and Cream nodded to him, seeming to understand.

Then came a low tone, and the video chat connected. Sonic pulled tighter around himself the blanket that the villagers had given him as the image of Eggman appeared on the screen.

"Sonic! My admirable adversary," came his jovial voice, but his pince-nez quivered on his red nose. "How grateful I am to see you, at long last, safe and well."

Sonic felt his own frowning face soften at the sight of the lines across the Emperor's face, the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his face, the ratty thinness of his moustache and goatee. He managed to whimper, gently, "Heh. Never thought I'd be this happy to see your ugly mug, Egghead."

Then came the familiar grin, wide and toothy, spreading across his round face. But gone was the malice, the control. It was a look of relief, like the look Eggman had worn when he'd learned of his grandfather's attempts to save the world. "Amy told me. I… I'm so glad you're alive. I was afraid I had been the cause of your death."

He gasped, surprised. "She told you?"

"Of course!" Eggman cheered, posturing, "That's what a loyal subject does. She begged for mercy toward Shadow on your behalf." Eggman frowned, eyes still smiling. "He said some treasonous things, you see."

Sonic grimaced, standing up, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.

"Listen to me, Egghead, and listen good," he growled, bashing his fists into the desk. "I haven't exactly made my peace with what happened ten years ago, but I'm willing to put that aside until our friends—and I mean they are OUR friends—are safe."

Eggman frowned. Was it anger? Was it sadness? Sonic didn't know, and wasn't sure he cared.

"But I don't feel like one, dealing with your little crown fantasy power trip, or two, having my friends threatened." Sonic crossed his arms, glaring. "If you have to, tell yourself I'm the King of the Little Planet, fine, but we're allies, not ruler and subject, so don't go posturing on me."

Eggman peered at him over mirrored glasses, teal eyes narrowed, pince-nez jumping. "I can accept that for now… your majesty. I just hope that you are behaving as a King Arthur ought, and not one of his nights, say, Lancelot?"

Cream laughed in the background, but Sonic felt his chest tighten. He wondered how Eggman could possibly know, what might even give Eggman an inkling that he'd return some of Amy's affections? Has he been watching? Sonic thought.

"I guess I'm only Arthur in as much that it was really Galahad that took the sword out of the stone." Sonic grinned, bluffing.

"Regardless, I'm sure your Mordred would be happy to see you."

Sonic barely suppressed an eyeroll. What was that supposed to mean? Tails?

He leaned in. "So, how do you know what I've been reading?" He immediately regretted laughing, as Eggman pushed his glasses up his nose.

"You think I don't look at the library records of subjects who think I ought to die?"

Sonic ignored is unease, asking, "No, I mean, how'd you know that was me and not him?"

"He doesn't read… classics, Sonic."

Sonic blinked. He was certain there was some deeper meaning in Eggman's words, as there often were as of late But what was he getting at? Was he saying that Sonic was more sophisticated, or was there something else there? He tried to push it from his mind, to focus on the task at hand, especially as he felt Cream's hand on his shoulder, prompting him.

"So, uh, what next? In this whole world saving thing?"

He shook his head, disappointed at how teenage he sounded.

"Cream will escort you to Chun-nan and return home to aid in our fallback measures." He grinned at Sonic, dryly purring, "I hope you understand."

Sonic frowned, and Eggman continued.

"Espio is waiting for you there."

"Just Espio? Not he whole Chaotix? Or should I say, the whole team of Imperial Inquisitors?"

Eggman looked away, as if reading something. "No, I'm afraid Vector has taken ill. Young Charmy is caring for him."

"Right. Hope he's better soon." Sonic forced a yawn. "I've been on my feet all day. I wanna get to Chun-nan before nighfall, so I'm gonna let you go and talk to you later. Sayonara, Egghead!"

"Good night, Sonic."

Sonic ended the transmission and collapsed onto the terminal, shaking with rage. It took Cream several minutes to rouse him.


	6. Chapter 5: Dragon Wounds

Chapter 5: Dragon Wounds

Author's Note: Twofer Tuesday. Hope this makes your week better than mine.

* * *

Cold, royal blue eyes, glaring back at him over glasses of the same royal blue, sparkling in the dim console lamps, in the low light. He swept her into his arms and fled, burying is face in her hair—her crimson hair, not violet.

They watched the ship plummet into the sea from the safety of the grass-dusted cape above, watching flames swallowed up by foam and salt.

And they laughed, finally free.

He awoke with a name on his lips, a name he couldn't remember. The name that came out instead was "Merlina."

"Who's she?" Came an unexpected reply, a male voice.

Sonic jumped, looking for the source, sending the sleeping fairy on his chest rolling onto the bed below with a sleepy little squeak. He found a violet figure at his bedside, sharpening a kunai. Before he could even ask, the ninja spoke.

"You dozed off in the train station, where we were to meet. Her Royal Highness got you a room here and asked me to watch over you while you slept." He sneered a bit at that thought, as if he had somewhere better to be.

"Who carried me?" Sonic lay back down. His obvious annoyance aside, he had nothing to fear from Espio.

"She did. She used to lug Big and Amy around at half her size; it's hardly a surprise she could carry you."

Sonic sat up again, slower this time, so the world didn't seem to spin. He took a look at the little room, full of beautiful china vases and ornate furniture, warm paper lamps. Most striking was his companion, so unchanged, almost the same, a little bluer in coloration and a little wrinkled around the eyes.

"You know what amazes me, Espio?" Sonic took a deep breath. "The part I'm afraid to tell my close friends?"

The chameleon shook his head, sharpening. His yellow eyes seemed to smoulder in the lantern light.

"How quickly everyone threw in with him. How quickly they gave up. He destroys the world and remakes it in his image, but we survive and we give up?"

Espio frowned, not looking up. Somehow that bothered Sonic more than the glare he expected. "I'm surprised to hear that from you."

"I don't judge. Well, I try not to." Sonic let a heavy sigh, trying to forget his conversation with Eggman. "I do a little, maybe. But everyone changed so fast. I understand why, why they did it, some of them. Knuckles, and Amy, I get."

Espio stood up, walking to the window, not meeting Sonic's eyes. "Do you really understand what we went through? Can you?"

"No, Espio, I can't. I wasn't there, just like everyone else wasn't there with me."

Espio glanced a second at Sonic's face, eyes shadowed. "So the change is painful."

Sonic nodded, assented, offering a quiet "yeah."

"But it's over in seconds. You can do that just like going super. Shadow too, now that there's a day and a night."

Sonic grunted again, inwardly groaning. He was starting to regret having asked.

"We were trying to hold the last chunk of the old Death Ruins between Empire and Westopolis. Mostly we were trying to get the President out of the country, to our allies in Apotos. It was his idea to hide there, even with Eggmanland on top of half the ruins. He was a Temple Guardian as a boy, I guess he knew the area. Amy had just been brought in by Shadow, fresh back from Shamar." Sonic tried to imagine how they must have looked as Espio spoke, the sad sparkle in Amy's eyes, Shadow's fur unkempt, the tall man with sad eyes in a tattered blue suit telling them where to hide. "It started with Shadow. He stopped sleeping at night, or what passed for night without a star in the sky."

Sonic mentioned, "I have a hard time sleeping as the werehog," to keep the story moving.

"He was jittery, said his blood was on fire. Within a day he was feverish, dazed, barely able to speak. His teeth began to change, and he started lashing out at Amy, who labored over him day and night, caring for him every spare moment she had past her other duties. With his new claws he put a scar across the President's forehead for getting his soup too hot."

Sonic nodded, having heard the story before, but frowned, having not heard it quite this way.

Espio bit his lip, then continued. "Vector started waking me in the night. At first I thought it was worry for Shadow, but then he started getting cranky a week later, complaining it was too hot when I could see my breath in the air. It was November, if you forgot. He started complaining about toothaches." Espio looked down. "Shadow was firmly in the throes of madness by then; I was sure I was going to lose Vector. Once Shadow's body was better, once he could move, I told Amy and the President to take Charmy and run for it."

Sonic leaned forward, shuddering to hear it this way.

"What good is fighting Eggman if we are monsters, not people? Just shells of who we were? What good does it do to die for a world that hasn't ended, only become worse, when an evil man has the only means to relative peace?" The chameleon threw his kunai into the wall, and it hit with a twang. "What Eggman did to you is between you, him, and the Gods," Espio sighed with resignation, "But I had my… I had my partner, that child, our team—no, our family—to worry about. So we turned us in. Or, I turned us in. Vector didn't speak to me for a year, but I saw him pass each day, no bags under his clear eyes, healthy scales in all the right colors."

Sonic good up, putting a hand on Espio's shoulder. "That's a hard choice, Espio, but we do what we have to for people we love. I couldn't blame you without blaming myself all those times Eggman took a hostage."

"Amy came to us a month later, arm hanging at a funny angle out of a torn dress." Sonic recoiled, having never heard this before. "She pledged her loyalty to the Emperor in exchange for rescuing Charmy from Shadow. He'd lost his mind, thought Charmy was Maria. Charmy, a little male bee, for a human girl. He kidnapped him, threw Amy of a cliff for getting in his way."

Sonic made a little gasp, the wind knocked out of him as he remembered Rouge's face.

"It took all of us to stop him. Vector and myself, Knuckles, Cream, tons of robot troops, the GUN Commander and Diablon, even Eggman in his mech to sweep in and grab Charmy. Eggman was badly hurt in the incident. As soon as we dragged Shadow, kicking and streaming, into the suppressor perimeter, he started screaming, 'What have I done?' Never have I seen a man weep like that.

"And he looked just like me."

Espio took a breath, sitting down on the edge of Sonic's bed. "Yes. Amy didn't speak to anyone for a month. Rouge washed up on Shadow's doorstep, trying to tear off her skin, asking us to take it out. She spent three days handcuffed to a hospital bed for trying to kill Eggman, for 'doing this to us.' Knuckles negotiated her way out. I'm not sure how, I didn't know he knew a thing about diplomacy. He'd already started setting up a refugee camp on the Island by then."

Sonic put his head in his hands. "No one ever told me this, Espio," he marveled. "Shadow never told me any of this. He made it sound so simple, so casual, I…"

"He wanted you not to feel guilty, no doubt." Espio got back, pulling his kunai from the wall. "When Amy finally spoke, it was to me. I'm not sure what about me drew her interest. Maybe because we weren't that close; maybe the same reason you asked me to tell." He smiled sadly. "She said to me, in passing, 'Hey Espio… did you ever notice before, that it's only when the sun goes down that the moon shines?"

Sonic bit his lip and tasted blood.

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"Amy."

Knuckles stepped in the apartment, taking off his cloak carefully and hanging it on the wall carelessly.

"You could knock." Shadow was sitting at the table, sipping a mug of tea. Knuckles was stunned to see him looking so much like his old self, a tiny, spiny hedgehog, and yet so diminished. He sat there wrapped in a blanket, staring at Knuckles with dull eyes.

Knuckles stared at him for a moment. "Shadow. I didn't expect you."

"No, you clearly came here to berate my wife, who went to get me some juice."

Knuckles' sat down. "I promise I'm not going to hurt her, Shadow. I just need to talk to her."

Shadow rolled his eyes, "You don't want to be seen speaking to me given what I said to him."

He sat down across from him. "You're my friend and I care about you. I don't care where I'm seen."

Shadow stood up, walking over to the window, standing in the sunlight. "Have you heard? Sonic's back."

Knuckles grinned. "Yeah. I wish I'd seen him in Apotos." He kicked his foot up on another chair. "It would have been nice to catch up with an old friend and tell him how great it is to see him. Maybe we'll meet again when he comes here for the last emerald."

"I can't be too excited." Shadow looked over his shoulder at Knuckles, frowning.

"Why's that?"

"Because now that all the secrets are coming out he might learn the truth."

Knuckles came over and put a hand on Shadow's shoulder. "Shad… We all feel that. No one is proud of what happened after the Last Sunrise."

Shadow leaned on the window, flopping as he hit the glass, as if he expected to fall out of the tower down to the city below. "I did things you never dreamed of in your worst nightmare."

Knuckles pulled him into a hug. "Your sickness was the reason they caught mine before I hurt her."

"And I'm changing again. I feel like two different people, Knuckles, never myself."

Knuckles pulled him close. "You'll be free soon. Sonic will take care of it.

Another pair of arms joined the hug, these ones scented of lilies and roses. "And we'll be there behind him. Together."

"But what if we can't follow him? What if it closes up behind us, or once we're down there, we can't help?" Shadow put his head on her shoulder, burying his nose in her pink spines.

"Oh Shadow, this isn't the first time that's happened." Amy pulled away. "We always have to watch you and Sonic at the last moments. Even Sonic knows that feeling, with the Black Arms, how you saved us. And … have a seat. Let Knuckles and me tell you about Bean the Dynamite, Gods rest his soul."

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They set out before dawn at his request; Espio was fine with that. They left the inn, entered the temple, and began the long winding path toward the shrine. Espio was surprised at how relatively few Dark Gaia monsters they faced; they encountered a single Great Mother, a few Nightmares here and there. It was almost peaceful to Espio, and he found his only regret was being in the company of Sonic, and not Charmy and Vector. He missed those adventures, running through jungles and flying through factories, finding computer rooms. He missed being with them. But since Vector got sick it was no longer all that possible…

He was distracted from his reverie by a scream and a splash. By the time he looked, the sun sparkled on the water beside the bridge, and Sonic floated downstream, screaming and sputtering.

Espio swore so much that a native came out of her hut and slapped him.

Chip was too busy crying to notice.

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"Live, Sonic."

Sonic lay in the cold magma, floating along, Chip standing over him. He wasn't the Gaia Colossus, standing there, maroon-violet fur glistening in the eerie glowing light. No, nor was he his tiny former self, fluffy and warm. He wasn't the strange spiny creature he became. He was… beautiful. Perfect proportions, like a man, broad chest and narrow hips. He was a woman with long violet hair, braided, sticking up. He was Amy, He was…

"Chip?"

"Live, Sonic."

He turned away from his old friend. "What if I don't want to?"

"Tough! I need you Sonic! We all need you! We can't do it without you."

Sonic tried to climb to his feet in the swirling icy magma, raising a fist into the air. "I won't save the world for you, you stupid fairy! I'll only do it for myself!"

And then Chip began to laugh, his old self, fluffy tail wiggling in the air, chartreuse wings beating.

"Oh Sonic, I don't need you help to save the world this time! I learned so much last time, your sacrifice isn't in vain. You can just relax, although I like how you're fixing the emeralds." Chip flew up into his face, reaching out, touching a cheek with a delicate claw. "I need you to live so I can feel happy instead of just right."

"Chip." He felt his eyes watering, and he reached out to caress chip's little face in a claw. "Chip, I didn't mean…"

"No one has a perfectly pure heart, Sonic. But you're as close as it gets. Don't run from your feelings." Chip hugged him. "But don't give into them either."

Sonic held him tight, close to his chest, trying to feel his warmth, trying to bring that smile to his own face.

"I love you, Sonic. I always have and I always will."

"Why?" Sonic asked. "Why does it feel like you're saying goodbye?"

"Because I am. I'll never be this way again. Not if all goes right. You'll understand… you'll be so proud of me!"

"Please don't go, Chip. I want to talk to you!"

"We can talk later." Chip placed a little hand on Sonic's chest. "For now, you need to live." The traced a hand up Sonic's chest, and suddenly he was lying in the sunlight and sand, coughing, water pouring out of his mouth. A pair of little girls picked him up out of the sand, holding him up and pressing on his chest to push the water out.

He laughed between the coughs, When Chip flew into his arms, purple wings fluttering, he laughed even harder. "Thanks for saving me," he croaked.

Chip blinked for a moment, surprised. "I… shucks, Sonic, I tried."

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He slept for half the day at the young ladies' house, and Espio had little to do but watch and wait. He helped with housework, sure, but who shows the work they must do to world heroes? Or to Eggman's inquisitors, for that matter. So he watched him lie there, watched Sonic sleep, dozing away the stress and the strain, the Dark Gaia Force and the warping of his body. He shivered in his sleep, and seemed to be burning up—exertion trying to swim?—and he kept on muttering for Chip, begging for him. For the little fairy's part, he stayed at Sonic's side, holding his hands, except for a few trips to the bathroom and the kitchen.

After a while he grew tired of watching, and stood, eager to do something else. As he turned to go toward the family's small home office, he heard Sonic mutter, "Chip, no." The creature recoiled, looking at Espio, frightened… or pleading?

"He's probably dreaming you're hurt, Chip." Espio reached over and patted the horned being on the head. "He's that kind of person." Espio turned to leave, taking a peek over his shoulder to make sure Chip returned to Sonic before leaving the room.

He asked the family to use their internet connection, so he could tell Eggman how helpful they were to the world's hero, Sonic. It took some convincing to show them he meant well, that he wasn't going to ask Eggman to send their own government after them, but eventually he finagled use of the computer out of them. He felt awkward reporting to Eggman about Sonic, but he was a detective, not a hero.

"Espio? How do you fare in the far East?" Asked the emperor, appearing on the screen in his pajamas.

"I did not mean to wake you, your imperial majesty," Espio apologized, bowing. "But I have news to report of Sonic."

"Cream has informed me that you and he met successfully and she bought the pair of you a night at Chun-nan's finest inn."

Espio studied his boss's sleepy face, uncovered and unobscured, naked royal blue eyes staring at him from the darkness of Eggmanland, begging for some news in which to cover themselves.

Far away, behind Eggman, he heard Vanilla mutter, "Darling, come back to bed, my feet are cold."

"Sonic doesn't appear to be well, my liege," Espio noted. "He was asleep when Cream made the handoff to me, and slept quite a while. He doesn't eat the way he used to, and when the sun came up, something happened to him. Somehow he fell into the river. We found him miles downstream, hedgehog again, being resuscitated by some locals. They claimed something pushed him ashore and made him start coughing up water, but they couldn't describe it. Since the incident, he's been feverish and delirious, mostly sleeping. He claims…" Espio frowned. "He claims that Chip saved him. Chip, honestly, seemed surprised at the idea that he might have done so."

Eggma smiled, and Espio thought he saw a bit of the old glint in Eggman's eyes. "Well, Chip was an amnesiac last time as well, this we can gather from all sorts of testimony. I doubt Chip understands the truth depth of his powers, or even how to use them. He probably saved Sonic by accident. Sonic would have recognized his powers."

Espio nodded. "Once we leave, if we can continue the pace from yesterday, well reach the Shrine in about a day, if the maps you gave me are correct. From there I'm going to use the teleport to send Sonic to Shamar as ordered. I really must express my doubt."

Eggman laughed. "Oh, Espio, I do appreciate it, but the contact in Shamar is beyond reproach. His vendetta against Sonic is purely professional and he has as much to lose in all this as anyone else." Eggman leaned in, blue eyes twinkling . "The beautiful thing about this tragedy is that it has taught us all to put our petty needs aside."

Tell that to Shadow, Espio thought.

"I'm going to go tend to the patient, with your leave, your majesty."

"Of course, Espio. Great work, as always. I'll credit your account. Think I've paid off that interest yet?"

Espio smiled as he ended the transmission. Then he laughed. How could such a monster make him laugh?

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He spent a day and night wandering the temples, looking for the exit.

Saving the world, smashing robots, turning her away, insulting him. Eating, drinking, laughing; crying, begging, reaching. Shelves of images of his life.

He stacked his deeds and theirs on the scales of his own arms, of the Earth, Apotos on the left and Eggmanland on the right. For each little white marble of joy in Apotos went a rotting pomegranate of sin into Eggmanland. He felt as though his arm might snap off.

Chip knocked the scale over, knocked him over, onto his back at rest. He folded Sonic's long, stretchy arms up into a cross on his chest, an X, X marks the spot, to the ultimate treasure that Dark Gaia could never, ever have.

"Let me weigh your heart, Sonic." Chip reached into his chest, pulling out an orb of white light to match his own green. "Let me weigh your heart, and I'll make it light as a feather. I'll set you free so you can pass on."

"You already had it."

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He seemed different today. It wasn't good.

There was something about Sonic that had always given Chip pause ever since their meeting in Apotos. It was something about his eyes, his eyes when he changed, something about claws and fangs, fire and brimstone. Fire and brimstone? What was brimstone?

But it was worse today. On one hand, Sonic didn't seem all that different in any way to which Chip could put a name. He was walking along the Dragon Road, chatting with Espio, smiling. They were talking about old times, times before Chip and Gaia, about a villain named Metal Madness who got the best of Eggman, about a robot named Omega who always wanted to destroy. They spoke of a tournament to find the world's best fighter, to find the one who'd go up in a rocket, a rocket built by someone called Tails, to stop Eggman. Both men paused a moment.

"It should have been me," Sonic confessed. Chip dropped in the air a bit before recovering his altitude. Was the guy they were talking about dead?

"Could Bean have stopped the ARK from falling?" Espio peered at Sonic without the slightest twitch of his head, only visible to Chip because Chip was flying slightly ahead of him. "Could he have defeated Metal Madness? Could he have reached all the shrines in time? He was an excellent brawler, Sonic, but his skills were different."He put a hand on the hedgehog's shoulder. "I'm not going to say it's fate, but you lived because we needed you. You can't feel guilty for living when you went on to save lives."

"But my life isn't worth more than his," decided Sonic, coldly.

"No more than chopsticks are worth more than diamonds at the dinner table."

This gave Sonic pause. He stopped in his tracks.

"Why Bean, why now, Sonic?" Espio paused too, holding out an arm slightly, reflected along with Sonic on the sea below the cliff. "You still don't seem well, Sonic. You're pale, and there's something about your eyes. They seem… dull."

Sonic smiled, seeming almost serene, but the look sent a shiver down Chip's spine. "The truth is that I don't feel well at all, but I have too much to do to stop. The feeling has been building for days, but I've never had the change be this hard on me, or felt so wonky during the day. So dizzy, and weak, and…." Sonic looked down at the sea. "I feel so small."

Chip flew closer to his friend, trying to imagine how someone as tall as Sonic could possibly feel small. As he tried to put himself in his friend's place, it dawned on him that he didn't mean size—Sonic felt insignificant. The thought outraged him.

He stuck himself to Sonic's arm with four rubbery limbs, clinging as if his life depended on it. "You're not insignificant, Sonic! You saved the world tons of times and you fixed the emeralds and you're my friend! You saved me from my amnesia and the bear and from being hungry and alone and scared!" Chip nuzzled Sonic's shoulder.

Sonic shifted Chip to his chest and held him close, resting his chin on the top of Chip's head. "My role is important, Chip, but… I'm just a guy who loves adventure, and being a jerk. I saved the world for fun, not for other people, which is probably why I lost. And all of my selfish desires…

"What selfish desires?" Chip cried with a laugh. "Liking Amy?" He flew up into Sonic's face "Wanting food and friends and not to be bullied and yelled at by random people being mean!"

"Chip—" Sonic tried to stop him, but Chip just crossed his arms.

"Life is a bunch of wants. Actually, life is wanting! You ought to give in some time, not beating yourself up over 'em, just have fun! Just do it!"

Sonic sat down, putting his legs over the cliff, dangling them. "Chip… I can't do anything else that's wrong."

The fairy wiped his eyes, trying to fight back the tears he felt. "What did you do wrong in the first place?" Chip sat on Sonic's knee, looking up into those sad, dull green eyes.

"I… I failed."

"But you tried your best."

"Yeah. I did."

Chip flew up and slapped Sonic across the face. "Then it's not wrong, just sad! I think you just want to be the one who did it wrong so you have control!"

That elicited a gasp from both men, who looked gape-jawed at Chip. Chip didn't see what was so shocking. It made sense to him, so he continued.

"Sonic, you make yourself guilty just so you don't feel helpless. You're just scared!" He began to sob as he shouted at Sonic, flying shakily in front of his face. "It's okay to be scared. I'm so.. . I'm so sorry!" A sob threw Chip downward and he settled down onto Sonic's knees. It seemed like an eternity before Sonic picked him up, hedgehog flesh almost seeming to burn. Was that because of Dark Gaia making him into the werehog?

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because my mistakes did this to you… You, you told me…" Chip shuddered.

Sonic held him tighter. "No, Eggman's mistakes did this to us. And I… I'll bring him to justice."

Espio raised an eyebrow at that, sitting next to them on the cliff. "You? Justice? That sounds like something Shadow would say."

Sonic knocked a pebble off the cliff with his fingers. "I had a dream, last night."

"A fever dream," noted Espio.

"Of weighing the sins in my heart against a feather. Like the old Echidna myth. Chip, you were there. You offered to take my sins away. And now I feel like I can… I can see what I did. What others have done. I…"

Chip frowned, taking Sonic's hand. "Sonic, I don't remember much of what I believe but… I know I don't believe in Justice. All I believe in is you and me. And the safety of Amy's pancakes."

Sonic thought for a moment, and then he started laughing, a hearty laugh. He leaned forward, chuckling.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know how he works in the day!" Sonic stood up, holding Chip, still laughing. "But I guess Dark Gaia finally got to me! I'm acting just like Yvon did, all sullen and angsty." Sonic sat back down, laying in the grass, legs hanging over the edge. Chip was getting dizzy from all that movement, and when Sonic lowered his arms, he took the opportunity to fly out of reach. "Here I thought I was losing my mind, nope! Just possessed. This is awesome! What a relief."

"Uh… okay." Espio raised an eyebrow.

Then Sonic leaped to his feet, curling up into a ball. Chip screamed in surprise. "WE have a Phoenix to meet and an emerald to fix! Come on, guys! Sooner we get this over, sooner we can be ourselves!

Sonic zoomed off with a boom, and Chip and Espio exchanged glances.

"Ever the optimist." Espio ran after him , and Chip struggled to keep up.

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She pulled the curtains and thanked whatever might be watching over that he wasn't home.

It would be too much to explain.

She clipped the device to her vest and threaded the headphones through it, clipping each bud to her pointed ears. Then she turned on the device and relaxed. The soft, electronic whistle washed over her and she quivered with anticipation. She stretched.

Then came the pounding of the bass, joined by instrument after instrument, a song far harder than she'd ever have listened to as a girl. She did a lot of things now, though that she'd never have imagined being possible, acceptable. The notes danced around her like raindrops and she began to step, to spin, as if somehow she could shake off the darkness that had come over her.

She used the chair at the head of the table as a balance, resting her weight on it as she switched onto one leg, onto the ball of her bare foot, her adult body untrained in the magic she'd need to support it all on a single toe. She listened to the guitars weaving in and out of each other, a melody too intricate for her untalented voice and her untrained feet. But that didn't stop her. She swung her hips with the music, spinning, running across the living room floor, watching the red curtains in the moonlight paint the room around as pink as she was.

She threw her head back and shuddered at the chorus, the voice shouting at her, screaming, sounding so much like his. Is this what he feels like? Something screaming inside him, trying to get out, dredging up all his issues, all his sorrows with it?

But which him?

She ran her fingers through her hair, worming through the air like an arm of Gaia, feet planted firmly on the floor, trying shake it out. The frustration, the desire, the despair, but most of all the anger. An anger she forgot she had, an anger she'd sworn away when she discovered how little it really did. She shuddered all over as she spun, trying not to think it, not to let it set in. Just be, just dance, that's what it wants.

She tried to focus on them, on her conflict and her pity and desire, and not to focus on the worst of it. No, what once was the main conflict of her life was now a petty thing, a worthy battle that righteousness and restraint would win, but that would prove to be an agonizing kind of fun in the meantime. She had learned to love suffering; it had become her power.

But it could have been easier. It could have made more sense, taken its natural course. If only.

She lifted a foot into the air and spun on her toes, barely cognizant of the cold, slapping impact, the clatter, the crash, the raining sound like tinkling ice even above her music, the warm pain on her leg.

She picked up a piece of the vase she shattered, red and green on white, covering up the broken stem of one yellow flower out of three. The stylized face of the Emperor stared back at her and she threw the piece to the ground, shattering it into nothingness. Finally she loosened, and she almost thought she could see a little mote of light in the air above her as she shut off her music.

"Thank goodness this will be over soon. I'm starting to act like the boys."

She got out the broom and swept up the vase.

hr

By the time Chip caught up with them, the fight was on. The grand phoenix, floating there, eaten up by emerald flames, was posturing between attacks in the lush sakura garden. Sonic was throwing barrels of water onto the creature from above as he stood below, powered by some strange glove and an even stranger energy that made Chip sick to sense. Espio, meanwhile, was hiding on the ground, invisible to the eye but not to Chip's heart, emerging from nothingness when the extinguished bird landed to stab at its legs with a short, shining sword.

Chip felt sorry for the phoenix, Dark Gaia possessed, not in its own control. Friend to all, otherwise, free to let the fire coarse through its powerful wings, to watch over Chun-nan in all its splendor…

Lost in half-remembence, Chip was surprised to find the Phoenix flying straight at him, Jaws open wide, sharp beak glinting in the afternoon sun. He could hear Sonic crying his name, his heart beating in his chest, his half-remembered life playing in his ears, he could hear the end coming.

Then there was a sickening splat, and a great weight on him. There was shouting, another noise, and the cold singing of steel on bone. Chip felt wetness, wondering absently if he had soiled himself.

Suddenly the purple form rolled off him, Espio clutching a monsterous gash across his stomach. The Phoenix crumbled next to him, crying out, blood running from a foot.

Sonic stood over the weeping creature, hands shaking, as Espio's sword fell with a clatter to the stony ground at his side. The phoenix was changing now, its colors darkening, normalizing. Little motes of white light danced around the trio, particularly Sonic, who seemed a magnet for them. Espio lay helpless, clutching his stomach as the thick red life poured out of him.

Sonic dashed over, putting one hand on Chip tightly, too tightly, the other gently on Espio's bloodied hands. "Hang in there, Espio," he soothed. Chip felt the whole world begin to open around him as Sonic reached into the Emeralds. Chip had never paid attention to Chaos Control before, but now he could see it for what it was, but now he was so scared to think of what had happened he had no choice but to pay attention. With the shock of Chaos control they were gone, in the coldness of inbetween, of outside, a place where Chip was nothing and Sonic was god.

Or was that all in his imagination as they landed at the hospital, on a table surrounded by Chun-nan doctors with their name badges written in intricate script. "Help him, please" was Sonic's plea, and Chip didn't understand what had come next, the stitching, the jargon, the broken English. It seemed to relieve Sonic, however, and so back through nothingness he carried Chip, back to the temple, where the phoenix lead them to a shrine.

Sonic placed the emerald on the altar and collapsed dizzily, begging, "Can I rest now? Just a little while, Amy?"

At some point, Chip realized, he had grasped Espio's sword, still longer than he was tall, in his tiny, elven hands.

hr

Strange, foreign moonlight filtered into the apartment, making the glass at table and high windows over the city glitter rand shine. The young man sat at the kitchen table, leg bouncing and wings flapping to the tune of the song feeding in through his one earbud. The other ear sat exposed, waiting for the cry of the tea kettle or that of his father. He ran a hand across the keyboard, writing about the inefficacies of United Federation foreign relations before the glorious Eggman Revolution and its medical diplomacy. He was really thinking about how much he hated everything about the Eggman Empire, except of course, being rich, but the bull came easily and got Dad Espio off his back.

When the phone rang he seized on it, eager for some distraction from his stupid homework. Maybe the princess would call him to ask about music or reminisce about old times. Maybe Espio wanted his help in Chun-nan. Maybe Dad Vector's prescriptions were in. Maybe the no-good Jerkface Emperor wanted his help. Maybe it was a telemarketer. He glanced at the caller identification, and seeing a Chun-nan number he didn't recognize, immediately picked it up.

He waited a moment and said "Yes." He listened again for a while, face falling in horror, and dropped the phone to the table. Then he picked it back up again, listened some more, and walked out of the house sock-footed, locking the door behind him.

His father came out, massaging his crocodile jaw with his left hand and an ice pack in his right. He walked into the kitchen, looking for the source of the ringing, the noise. Finding Charmy absent and the phone abandoned on the table, Vector muttered about hat ungrateful kid and put the phone back on the charger. He poured himself some tea and went back to bed, arranging purple pillows beside him to be about the right size to support his arm, about the right size to be someone else.


	7. Chapter 6: Arid Hearts

Chapter 6: Arid Hearts

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the delay. Life got busy. If I get another snow day tomorrow I might upload the next chapter then, but if things get busy it might be Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

A cool wind washed through the street, and Chip shivered.

"You're sure he'll be ok, Sonic?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. The doctors said it missed all the major organs, just skin and muscle. He'll have to take it easy, keep still for a while to heal, but he'll live. She stopped before she got his bowels or anything." Sonic didn't look as relieved as he sounded.

The passing people looked at them with disdain through beards and veils, only the odd smile peeking through among murmurs of failure that Sonic didn't seem to catch. The trio of fellows behind them especially seemed incensed, making some comments about an ethnicity and aliens that Chip didn't quite understand himself. Indeed, while Chip found himself hyperaware of all these people and their malice, Sonic hardly seemed to notice anything, barely dodging people on the street. A pair of women in black veils whispered, "hey," as they passed, but Sonic didn't even notice.

Like Chip didn't even notice Espio, until it was too late. "He… he was going to die saving me." Chip settled onto Sonic's shoulder.

"That's what Heroes do, Chip."

He hugged Sonic's spiky head. "Tell me all about his friends. Please."

He could feel Sonic's cheeks rise into a smile. "I know those guys through friends, Mighty and Knuckles. They got trapped by Eggman, and busted out together. They called themselves the Chaotix. Knuckles did his own thing, and Mighty ran off with some fox, but Vector, Espio, and Charmy Sr. stayed together and started detective agency. Charmy, he died in the Chaos attack on Station Square, but Vector and Espio raised his son as their own. The whole family bickers constantly, but they always have each other's backs."

Chip blinked. "So… they're together? Like boys and girls?"

This thought seemed to incense the men following too close behind.

Sonic shrugged. "Think so. Doesn't matter much to me, long as I don't have to watch it happen."

They were quiet for a moment, and then Chip asked, "Do you think Vector will be mad at me?"

Chip felt a pat on his head. "Nah. Vector isn't like that. He can forgive."

As they turned the corner, they found themselves in a narrow alley; what had made them turn that way. A voice behind them taunted, "Maybe we are. Like that."

In seconds, something had its hands around Chip's waist, tearing him away from Sonic, and Sonic was on his face on the pavement, the foot of a violet-eyed human boy in his back. Chip flailed, but there was no use fighting.

They started to say something, something about vengeance and what Sonic's failure did to them, something about being a traitor, when a pair of women in black emerged into the alley. Chip couldn't make out much of them, just the sharp eyes behind their veils, but he saw the smaller woman strike the wrist of the man holding him at the bone, allowing Chip to wiggle free. The other woman grabbed Sonic's captor and threw him into a wall with a soft grunt. The gentlemen fled.

"Pretty… committee?" Sonic gasped, trying to get to his feet. "Yasmine?"

The woman hoisted him up, and her smaller compatriot squeaked, "He remembers!"

Sonic laughed. "and Samia? You…"

"Jet the Hawk sent us for you. There were rumors of assassination now that they say you're working with Eggman." Yasmine picked him up in her arms. "And Am-excuse me, Dr. Rose, she said we should help if you were sick."

"You look different than last time, Chip!" Samia exclaimed.

"Jet the Hawk is my contact in Shamar? How the heck does that work?"

"He was one of the last people to submit to Eggman," explained the elder sister. "So when he finally caved and became Eggman's ambassador here, people didn't hate him as much. He's made Eggman do a number of things to appease us…"

"Not as much lately. I think the evil doctor has something on him."

Chip settled on Samia's head.

"So where are we meeting up with the Rogue?"

"Professor Pickle's old lab. Dr. Rose has some facilities there, still, and we can use them, but Jet mostly wanted the nostalgia trip, I think."

hr

The lab was musty, dusty, not well maintained. It made sense, Sonic thought; Eggmanland wasn't too friendly with Shamar, only communicating about matters of Gaia. Amy wouldn't get there all that often. It was so much like he remembered it, though, he could almost see Professor Pickle sitting at the table, waiting to tell him the location of the next temple.

Instead, he saw a green hawk, feet kicked up on the table, a book in his hands. It was a library book from the Eggmanland Library System, Sonic recognized it well; he'd wracked up a 50 Ivo fine on Shadow's account with that copy. He wasn't sure what to make of how self-aware it was of Jet to be reading it here, in Shamar, where it was written, or of how it made him think of Shahra.

Yasmine, the elder girl, locked the door behind them, but Jet didn't look away from the book, or at least, he seemed not to. It was hard to tell beyond the silver goggles he wore. He wore a red fez, Sonic decided probably more to be ironic than anything, and a shortened version of a traditional Shamari robe.

"So, Sonic. Long time, no see."

Sonic glared. "I wasn't aware we had a date."

Jet stood, waking over to him. "How do I know you're the real deal, and not one of those robot copies, like Metal Sonic made of Shadow?"

Sonic cocked his head to the side slightly. "How do you know about that, Jet?"

"Raided Eggman's Lava Shelter once, after the aliens came," After a moment, he explained further, "For Extreme Gear parts, and revenge after that flying carpet thing."

Sonic crossed his arms. "I don't feel like playin' some game with you, Jet. I don't mind our races but this ain't the time."

Jet got in his face "I won't accept some inferior copy, or some blue coward."

"Where were you, Jet?"

"Trying to keep Wave from killing Storm." Jet gave him a shove. "I was going to challenge you right here, right now, but then that little pink girlfriend of yours—"

"She's not my girlfriend!"

"—threatened to bash my brains in if I did. I'm not afraid of her but I don't feel like dealing with it, so Noon, Tomorrow, near the Temple. Be there." Jet turned to walk away.

"Nice catching up with ya, buddy." Sonic rolled his eyes and sneered.

"The living quarters, we went through and prepared them for you with Layla's help," the younger guard noted, taking Sonic's hand in hers. "Let us get you a meal and somewhere to rest."

Sonic thanked Light Gaia for small kindnesses. Nothing in this world lifted his spirits like the admiration of a child, even one grown.

hr

He remembered this bed, this wall, this window. Happier times, as sad as they were.

He hadn't been able to sleep in them, then, either.

So he went over to the wall, where the Committee, as he had come to call them, had installed a simple computer for him. He called and he waited, and he waited, and he waited.

It took a long time connect, before it finally did. She answered, and he was relieved, seeing the smile on her painted lips, her green eyes lit up. After a moment, however, her brow furrowed.

"Sonic, you should be asleep."

"I can't sleep here, Amy," he explained, sitting down. "Ghosts in these walls."

She shook her head. "I'm pretty sure Pickle didn't stick around."

"How did he die, Amy?" Sonic shook his head, leaning on the table on his elbows, stretching his arm to reach the mouse and turn the chat program's volume up.

Amy frowned, looking down. "I'm still not sure of the details. Communication was shaky then—it was right after Shadow retrieved me, and I was a little distracted trying to rescue Charmy Bee. Yvon told me that he'd had a massive heart attack. I think he died of a broken heart."

Sonic got up and turned away from the screen. "About Charmy."

"About Charmy," Amy echoed, barely above a whisper. "I should have known eventually you'd find out."

He stared at the blank wall ahead of him, at the moonlit window outside, trying not to picture his own words. "Amy, how can you be with Shadow if he did that to you? Hurt you that badly?"

"It's a mental illness." Amy cleared her throat. "Dark Gaia is a mental illness, with which he is afflicted. He knows if he deviates in the slightest from his treatment regimen, I'm leaving."

Sonic turned back, snarling. "How could you trust him after that?"

"Five years of him showing me he was in control, not the beast."

He growled, clawing into the table. "How could you even respect him afterward? How could… how could look at him, speak to him? Doesn't it bother you?"

She laughed suddenly. "Does what bother me? The fact that I couldn't save Charmy myself? Of course it does, Sonic. So does the fact that you had to rescue me from Eggman on the Little Planet. No one likes knowing they could be overpowered."

Sonic's jaw dropped. He'd never thought of it that way.

"But there's something out there that can defeat even you and Shadow. I can count on both hands the number of beings in this world still left who can hurt me, and all but one of them is in love with me." Amy smiled gently.

Sonic wasn't sure what kind of face he made in response, but it made her smile.

"I'm sorry I can't love you both the same way. But he worships me, he follows me, except when he feels stubborn. He submits to me. You never would, and I wouldn't want you to—you mean more to me now than you could ever have as a lover." Amy shook her head, still smiling. "But the reason that I'm still here, still alive, in a position of power after all that happened, is not because I was strong. That helps, a lot, but it's not enough. I made everyone love me. I bring sad people comfort and solace, I bring curious people knowledge. Every now and then I realize I'm doing it for my own benefit, but mostly I just hate seeing people sad."

Sonic felt something warm on his face. Was it just a blood rush? Was he crying?

Amy leaned in toward the camera, frowning. "I didn't mean to make you attracted to me. I can't say I mind the attention, but no, I didn't mean that. I wanted you to respect me, really. I'm sure once you're socialized again, not so lonely all the time, you'll get used to it and get over me. Knuckles tells me one of his staffers helped you right after the Last Sunrise. She's cute, for a girl; you should ask her out."

Finally he spoke.

"Amy, do you really love Shadow, or are you just using your marriage to keep yourself safe?"

"I love him," she decided. "I really do adore him, but he disgusts me sometimes, and he always wants to bake together when I have research to do. And you can't change someone. They can only change themselves. And whenever I start to feel afraid of him, I just make up an assignment in Spagonia or Shamar and Eggman signs the decree for me, and Rouge checks up on Shadow's treatments."

Sonic shuddered, putting his head in his long claws.

"But look at you. Ten years as the werehog and the worst you do is throw someone off a cliff."

He whimpered.

"But you tricked her into thinking it was for real when it wasn't. Oh, Sonic, I wish I could reach through the screen right now, you need a hug. What you did to Rouge was a real jerk move, but it wasn't evil. You aren't evil, not even with all the evil of the world running through your veins."

"And why is that?" he choked.

"Because you're self-aware. You know exactly who and what you are, so you notice when something changes. Espio said you think your Dark Gaia infection is getting worse; who notices that? Keep us informed, so we can help."

"He's ok?"

"Fine. But watch out; Charmy's missing, and given his attitude problem there's a good chance he's coming for you."

Sonic looked up at the screen again, looking at the twinkling of sad green eyes. He realized how much older she looked.

"We're going to make it through this, Amy," he tried to comfort.

"I'm not the one with doubts, Sonic. Plug in that bookreader I gave Shadow for Christmas two years ago, and I'll upload _Jane Eyre. _That ought to put you to sleep."

He finally felt himself smiling. "What are you talking about? _Jane Eyre _isn't boring. Send me some Tolkien; the foreword'll knock me out."

hr

The sun came up, and he swallowed a scream. He jerked, driving his nose into her forehead. Then he could no longer stifle his agony. He roared, pulling his upper body away, squeezing his black nose to stifle that particular pain.

"Shadow? What's wrong?"

She reached up, brushing a pink hand against his black brow, but he said nothing, trying to ignore the pain, absently wishing the impact would have drive those little tabs of bone into his brain. He didn't think it'd kill him, but he could hope.

"Shadow?" Amy begged, "Talk to me!"

"Nose," he squeaked.

"Oh, are you going to be ok?" She seemed almost relieved, her hand on him instantly relaxing, causing him to loosen at the shoulders too. He looked across the bed at her messy pink spines and smiled.

"Fine. Go back to sleep. I have duty."

So he got out of bed, still pinching his aching nose. He fought to stand straight, walk straight, until he was out of her sight, and then he collapsed on the bathroom counter. He let a low whine. How long had he wished to be his old self again, a hedgehog, small and fast. Now he missed the werehog. His rage was much less now, yes, but this twice daily agony was not worth the drop in his aggression. He turned on the shower when the phone rang, and he dashed out into the other room to pick it up before it woke Amy.

"Hello?"

"Shadow," came a soft, clear, voice, "I hope I didn't wake you, but I figured it was after sunrise."

Shadow snorted. "I was up." He put down the toilet lid and sat down atop it. "What can I do for you, Dr. Prower?"

That deep voice wavered. "I'm s-sorry to bug you, and I know this is weird, it's not like we're all that close, but…"

Shadow rolled his eyes and grabbed his toothbrush.

"But you're our head of security now. So anything unusual, I'm supposed to report to you."

Shadow swished the foam to the side of his mouth. "Cu' th' crapb, Milesh," he slurred, and spat.

"I saw a creature in the rocket. Made of Green light, like some kind of fairy. It seemed… familiar."

"But we're in the city. Surrounded by Gaia Absorbtion Generators, none of those things should be able to resist."

"Yes." There was a long pause before Prower spoke. Shadow used the opportunity to rinse and gargle, despite his confusion. "So it can't be Dark Gaia."

Shadow reflected for a moment, leaning.

"It was broad daylight, Shadow, reports are rolling in all over the city of the same. Cats, phoenixes, even bears. And in cities on other continents, always in the vicinity of either Suppressors or Temples. Rouge and Cream have reported them, eye witness, so has Espio."

"And you've told Eggman about this, right?"

Miles sighed. "Yes, and he says he's going to tinker with the suppressors. He insists it's Dark Gaia. But, you're our security head and you need to be informed, so I thought I'd give you my eyewitness report."

"Help me do my job. Right."

"And I noticed my assistant, the one with purple hair. She used to have blue eyes. They're teal, now."

Shadow stuck his feet in the tub, enjoying the warm water. "Spend a lot of time lookin' in her eyes?"

There was a pause. "Compared to where most men look? Yeah. She's not my type."

"Amy says my eyes have changed color. They're brown now, but they're red like always at night."

Shadow wiggled his feet in the water.

"I only work day, Shadow. I haven't seen her at night."

Shadow grabbed the soap and began washing his legs, phone tucked under his chin.

"I don't know why but… after I heard about what you said… I know you'll be honest, Shadow. You don't usually lie."

"For a moment, Miles, I thought you were going to say I was like him."

The fox laughed across the phone line, a roaring, boyish giggle. "Shadow, you're only like him in shoe size."

"And alignment. Have you heard, he's calling himself King Arthur I of the Little Planet."

"it's what you have to do to play ball with Eggman," noted Prower. "Same move Knuckles made. I.. I hope I get to see him. Sonic, I mean."

"Gonna knock some sense into him?"

"Of course. Not like Cream though. To think I almost asked for her hand."

"So," spat Shadow uncomfortably, 'You're noticing strange green creatures and eye color changes. Anything else?"

"I've lost three of my staff members to harassment complaints in the last six days. Accusations of Dark Gaia sympathies and infections. All sorts of nasty moral judgments. My assistant asked me the other day, 'Why weren't you there for him?'" Shadow couldn't hear it, but he knew Tails was fighting a sob.

"But you were. She… how dare she."

"She used to be so shy."

Shadow pulled the showerhead down and rinsed his legs. "You know, Miles. I've been feeling judgmental. No doubt you heard what I said."

"I heard." There was a long pause before he asked, "So, have they found Charmy?"

"Passenger manifest to Shamar. Look, I gotta get ready for work. Can I talk to you there?"

"Sure."

Shadow put the phone down, hung the showerhead back up, and turned it on, letting the water burn way the pain and sin.

hr

They baked beneath the desert sun and waited.

He pulled his cloak further over his face, ignoring the burning at the tip of his nose and in his stomach. Already noon and still he wasn't over the change. Or was it Amy, who haunted his dreams and stirred up his discomfort? No, he was pretty sure this was not that kind of discomfort.

Yasmine and Samia waited impatiently, the elder checking her watch with frustration, and the younger cuddling up to a sleepy Chip, his long tail wrapped around her robed arm.

"It's 12:30. He's an hour late."

"I hate it when people keep me waiting," he murmured, rolling his eyes. Yasmine slapped him upside the head. He grunted out a "Sorry. But it's not like him to be late."

"He's not going to help us," she decided, glancing at her sister and Chip. "We have to get the tablet from him."

"Steal from a professional thief? That's a great idea." Sonic dropped into a deep lunge, stretching his leg. "Give him another half hour."

"Then we should get you some shade, Sonic." Samia came over, wrapping an arm around him protectively. "You weren't looking well this morning."

"I need him to see us. I'll be fine."

Yasmine walked over, closer, so she could be heard over the desert breeze. "I wish I knew why people were so cruel. They don't understand how hard you worked."

"They need someone to blame, Yaz. It's too hard to blame Eggman with all the good he does now, so it goes to me."

"I guess."

"I won't say it doesn't hurt." He knelt down, stretching his legs, trying to get warmed up for what he knew was coming. "But what I do to myself is way worse. I can't wait for all of this to be over, so I can move on."

Samia went back to hugging Chip. "What will you do when it's over, Sonic?"

"Huh. That's a good question."

It was then that he heard a subtle whirring, drawing his attention and the others', even waking Chip. A green blur approached in the distance, wobbling n the air over golden dunes. He flew up to them, sans robe and fez, wearing only goggles, riding boots and a wicked grin.

"So much for the early bird," Sonic quipped.

"Is that a blue worm sticking out of the sand?"

Jet hopped off his board, leaning on it. "Where's your gear, Sonic? Bubbling in the mantle?"

Sonic frowned, cursing himself for showing weakness. "You didn't tell me it was an Extreme Gear race."

"What would you expect with me? Tech decks?"

"An XG race wouldn't prove anything with you anyway, Jet. I think we ought to have a foot race."

Jet laughed, a mad hen's chuckle. "Any cheap Eggman copy could beat me in a foot race, with how I was born for the sky." Jet got into Sonic's face.

"You'll fly. I'll run. I'll lead you there."

"And if I get ahead?"

"For more than five minutes, or so bad we get off track? You win. But I remember the way there."

"And what does that prove?" Jet peered at Sonic with bright blue eyes. Sonic leaned back a bit, to bring his face into focus.

"That I want to get there as fast as possible. That once Dark Gaia is stopped, I'll race you or help you find Wave or whatever. But this is important now."

The girls looked at each other, Samia dropping Chip in shock. "She's missing?"

But Jet laughed. "Sonic, you're such a goody two shoes, you slay me! I know exactly where she is."

Sonic looked at him expectantly.

"Eggman needs her skills. She's on the moon. Can you fly me to the moon?"

Sonic grinned, teasing, "Sure, but not Jupiter or Mars." This earned a chuckle from Jet, and Sonic continued, "If I can get there, I'll find a way to get you there."

"But how'd you know?"

"Shadow keeps me informed."

The two men stared into each other, blue into green. "You're sure you're up for a race?"

"All I'm up for is saving the world. If I have to race, then so be it, just as long as it's not my last."

Yasmine came over, pulling off her veil and revealing long, black hair, braided.

"Whoah, don't let the morality police see that."

"Oh, like you care, Jet." She rolled her eyes, raising the scarf into the air.

Sonic cast aside his cloak and crouched in the sand, stagger-footed. Chip flew onto his chest and Sonic wrapped an arm around him, clutching him low, like a football. Jet picked up his board walked back, and started running.

"Ready? Set? Go!"

Yasmine whipped down the scarf with a flutter, and Sonic started running. Within moments he could see Jet rising into the air behind him as he looked over his shoulder.

"Go Sonic!" the girls cheered behind him, and Chip in his arms. He pulled Chip closer and held him, trying to get a head start before the climbing part of the path started. The wind in his spines, somehow the sun didn't seem so harsh. Somehow, he felt all right.

hr

"So that's it, then."

"The ships are ready," he replied, leaning into the camera. "The imperial ship launches as soon as we have the last Emerald. The first colony ship will come after, and Sonic's success will determine whether it comes back for more."

The swallow also leaned in, scarf falling away from her violet face. "You're excited to see him again, aren't you Tails?"

"Quit calling me that!" The fox bared his teeth for a second before admitting, "and yes, I am. As soon as I make this call, I'm leaving for Adabat."

He wondered how wooden his faced looked, how restrained. Her response gave him his answer.

"You don't know how to feel, do you?"

"No, Wave. I don't."

She laughed. "Oh, give him a break, furball! He's probably embarrassed he lost. Wouldn't you be, if you failed him like you think he failed you?"

Miles growled at her. "Hey! He didn't… I didn't hide when I failed him."

"No, because you have it in your head that he's the world hero and you're just some kid. If you lose, he'll be there, he was before." She adjusted the camera, tiling it up, more on her face and less below. "He knew if he failed no one else would pick up the pieces. They might put things back together, but not right. He bore it all himself, afraid to burden you."

"So?"

"So take it on."

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Jet flew though the air, board vibrating beneath his feet, thinking, Can it really be him? After all these years?

He looked over the vast desert below, the skeletons of ancient palaces wrapped and dressed in stone and sand. He could see the huge blur of Sonic's footfalls, the displaced sand, cutting a line through the winding mountain path. He wondered about the unbeatable Sonic, who only lost twice—once to Shadow against the Black Aliens, and once against Bean the Dynamite. But he noticed as he came upon the mountain that the path was becoming erratic, waving, with sharp points and shaky footing.

He swore and flew lower, searching for the hedgehog. Halfway around the peak he found him, hanging over a ledge by his filthy-gloved fingers, trying desperately to reach a little higher with one hand. A figure, dark, hidden in the shadow of the mountain, boot raised, stood over Sonic's planted hand.

In a moment Jet flashed back, the moments coming together. He remembered fighting the strange blue creatures in Westopolis with Storm and Wave, watching the sky go dark and the moon disappear. He remembered trying to sooth burning flesh that Storm couldn't bear, and hiding behind his extreme gear when the pain became too great. He remembered waving to the duo as they went into the shuttle, trying not to let tears fall down his face. He remembered his father's gift to him that last day, making Jet promise to forgive them all if he never returned. He remembered seeing the tears in Sonic's eyes on the news, barely fought off, as an escape pod came back empty. He remembered most of all their time together, racing along the sands atop their boards, Sonic smiling, not even realizing the weight of it all.

He ditched his board and flew into the dark figure, screaming.

He felt a hand punch him in the face, and then something pierced into his thigh, like a hot knife. He squawked and planted a feathery fist into his opponent's face, hand sliding off chitinous armor. An insect. He tried to stick his thumbs into the attacker's eyes—

"Don't hurt him, Jet!" came a panting cry from Sonic, now visible to Jet kneeling on the ledge. It gave Jet enough pause for the insect to throw him away. Jet glanced at his leg, spotting a huge swelling wound, perfectly round. A sting. A bee.

Jet watched the black-clad bee circle in on Sonic. "This is your fault, what happened to Espio, to Earth!" came his shrill voice. "You did it!"

Sonic stood, shaky. "Espio saved Chip. I owe him my—"

"You should have saved Chip!"

"Yeah?" Sonic sneered. "And you should have saved Shadow."

Charmy spat. "Don't talk to me about that nutcase!"

Sonic bore down on Charmy, approaching, looking down into his eyes. "Who was there to save whim when the ARK fell? We thought he died, but we didn't place blame. Lucky Eggman saved him!"

Charmy paused. "…Espio's alive?"

"He'll make a full recovery, might have a scar."

Charmy was quiet a moment, but then he threw himself at Sonic. "You didn't tell me!"

"You threw me off a cliff!" Sonic dodged awkwardly.

Chip flew from below the ledge, over to Jet. "Uh… Jet? What do we do?"

Jet coughed. "Let 'em fight it out, I guess." He sat down shakily, watching as Charmy punched, and Sonic dodged, Sonic kicked, and Jet shivered.

"Jet?" asked Chip.

"I'm allergic, I think." He wheezed.

They watched Charmy push Sonic over to the cliff, shouting about Eggman and Gaia. What Jet saw—or imagined—stunned him. Something unseen took Charmy's hat, causing the insect to shout in shock, nearly dropping Sonic over the edge.

"Espio!"

Jet decided that Chip was good at spoiling moments.

"Espio?" Sonic gasped. Charmy echoed the statement, but was quickly interrupted by a great green figure sweeping out of the darkness and locking his head within its arms.

"Charmy, you little brat!" shouted the crocodile, squeezing on his neck. "Take the whole phone call before you run off half-cocked for vengeance!"

Espio appeared in view, huge white bandages wrapped around his slender waist. He hobbled over to Charmy and Vector. "I'm fine, Charmy, but I'm not happy. Everything we sacrificed, you just put at risk over your temper."

Jet tried to draw their attention, but he couldn't draw enough breath. He looked at Sonic with pleading eyes, asking, Will my whole family die saving you?

"Uh, guys?" Chip interrupted.

"It's his fault you got hurt!" pouted Charmy.

"No, it's Eggman's. Right Vector?"

Sonic tapped Vector's shoulder, and pointed toward Jet.

"Jeez! Shaddap, Charmy, we gotta get Jet help!"

Jet pulled the tablet out and sat it on the ground. Vector let go of Charmy, who then scooped up Jet and began to fly. From Charmy's arms, he could see Vector and Espio hop on his board. He heard them shout something down at Sonic and Chip before everything faded.

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The moon wavered overhead as Sonic's breath failed him.

"I'm not fast enough!" He panted. Chip looked on sadly.

Sonic lay at the bottom of the stone door, panting, long furry arms hanging over the steps. His legs burned at him, his fingers and claws ached. "If only we'd made it here before sunset, I could get in before it fell…"

"You can wait, right?" Chip sat on Sonic's leg.

"I wish I'd just gone with Jet." Sonic looked at his friend, watching those bright green eyes shining in torchlight. "It's my fault Charmy stung him."

"It's not your fault. It's mine. And there wasn't enough room on the board for you and Vector and Espio. And Vector told you to keep going!"

He offered a sigh. "And there was something here before, you could use to hold down the switch, open the door. That door!" he pointed at the door before him. "I remember you hit that switch"—he pointed across the little courtyard—"to open this door."

Chip patted Sonic's leg. "We'll figure it out."

"I have to do this all over again! The first time didn't count for anything!"

Chip whined, eyes watering. "Sonic." He took a claw in his tiny hands. "Life isn't a list of things you do. It's a constant struggle… ooh, like those waves on that beach. In and out. Each day we try to grab what we need. Some days we get it, some days we don't, some we lose what we have. But it's always that give and take, back and forth. Nobody wins forever."

Sonic glanced down at Chip, trying to figure out where all that wisdom came from. Did he remember? "That was deep."

"And you act like the world is so much worse, but, aren't there people who are better off? I mean, Dark Gaia is evil. But doesn't evil give good meaning?"

"I guess."

"Do you think Amy would be as strong if you had won?"

Sonic put his elbow on his knee, and his chin on his fist. He thought for a moment, before offering, "I guess not. She always would have followed me. And I finally snapped Knuckles out of his gullibility, I guess."

"See?"

Sonic flicked Chip's forehead with two fingers. "You can't seriously be arguing that the world is better because I left."

Chip frowned, looking up at the moon. "No, Sonic… I'm saying. There are good things that happened because of that. And if you could find away to take it all back, to win the first time… you'd take those good things away. They could never have happened, because it was the bad things that made good rise up."

A strange voice added, "And now that the world knows the danger of Gaia, they will never again underestimate it."

Sonic jumped, sending Chip flying, hitting his head with a painful tunk on the molding of the temple door. Chip righted himself to look at the newcomer, a shriveled old man in Shamari robes and a turban. The man's eyebrows were so thick that they obscured his eyes.

"But you're dead!" Sonic shouted, pointing, trying to back up against the stone door. "Amy told me you were dead."

"In a way, my boy," said the fellow in his clear, deep voice, "I died with you."

Sonic began to weep.

"Sonic, who is this?"

"I'm Professor Pickle, my boy. And don't be afraid, Sonic. I'm alive, and I have been these last ten years. I went into hiding because of how many people blamed me for collaborating with Eggman. Never mind that I was under duress."

Sonic stopped backing up, shaking, and threw himself forward, giving the old man a surprisingly gentle hug.

"I thought I killed you, Professor. They said… you died of a broken heart."

The old man patted the werehog on the back reassuringly. "Had I known you were still with us, I would have told you I was well."

"Same here." They separated. "So what are you doing out here?"

"Gurading the temple, of course!" Pickle sighed after his exclamation. "The least I can do after my miserable failure."

"Your failure! I'm the one who missed!"

Chip slapped himself in the forehead.

"I was unable to prepare you."

Sonic smiled, shaking his head. "I know what I'm up against this time. If you stand on that switch," Sonic pointed, "I can go through that door and fix this."

"And after?"

"I'm taking reinforcements down. This is the whole world's fight, not just mine, and I'm not going to go unprepared."

"Godspeed, Sonic the Hedgehog."

Pickle stepped onto the lever and the door slid open. Sonic took a long look at the old man before stepping through.

"Thanks," Chip purred behind him.

"Oh, don't thank me," Pickle chuckled. Sonic stopped, listening, trying to make out his words. "And you won't thank him when he finds out the truth."

Chip quickly caught up, pale, as if he'd seen a ghost.

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He dreamed of amusement parks, of death traps and little blue hedgehogs, of robots, of power. He dreamed of an empire spanning the stars, of mountains of ice cream, of a galaxy in the palm of his hand.

He rose from his bed and was dressed by his attendants. He thought of what crime he'd make up for the short one, the one who was part of the resistance, in order to ease Shadow's conscience at the execution. It had to be horrific; anything too petty would be hard on Shadow. He wasn't sure why it was that he was so concerned about Shadow's happiness. He told himself that it was because Shadow was dangerous when angry and that his happiness guaranteed Amy's allegiance. He was certain it was really that he cared, but in the end, did it matter? They were still at his command.

He ignored the voice in his head, telling him how callous and spiteful he was, how worthless he was, how unworthy he was to bear the will of Light Gaia into the stars. He would make penance when the God was before him. He was pretty sure this was just a low-level possession anyway, and that either way, he would have victory. Either they would defeat Dark Gaia and be an instrument of Light Gaia's love, warm and safe in its superiority for eternity, or he would use it to power his path to other worlds. He'd never felt quite so peaceful about a plan, especially curious in light of the fact that Sonic's meddling was both its lynchpin and its only disastrous contingency. By the time Sonic knew, though, it would be too late, provided his paranoia were in check.

He made his way into the imperial ship's hollow central chamber with a tiny box an attendant had prepared for him and opened it, pulling out a sundae. He offered it to the awaiting elven giant, who looked at him sadly, tears of light pouring down his eyes.

"Take heart. He'll be with us soon."


	8. Chapter 7: Jungle Judgement

Chapter 7: Jungle Judgment

The pair stood on the long docks underneath the moonlight, staring into the water below. To his left, Sonic could see where they'd just gotten in, the moustache-branded EggCorp teleporter. To their right was the jungle village that held all their answers—or at least the shrine that would lead there.

"So… who do you think will be here for us this time, Sonic?" Chip clapped his hands, excited.

"I can think of two possibilities," his companion sighed, scratching his chin with long claws. "I'm not sure I'm ready for one of 'em."

"Oh?"

Sonic glanced at his companion and adjusted his bandage on one wrist. "Chip…. Do you remember anything? We're getting down to the wire here. Two emeralds left. You might have to bust out your mad Gaia skills soon."

The little fairy shivered in the wind. "No… I know now that the stuff you told me is true. I… there's a shaky memory of last time. Of when we lost. But that's all I got."

They stood silent for a moment, staring out at the churning sea, before Chip spoke again.

"You never answered my question, Sonic."

"It might be Shadow."

They glanced at each other.

"But Amy went back to Eggmanland to care for him. It's probably Tails."

Chip sat on Sonic's shoulder. "But isn't Tails your best friend?"

Sonic made his way toward the village, holding his claws in front of him at the waist as they shuddered quietly. "That's what I'm afraid of, Chip. Nobody loved me like he did, not even Amy. What will he think of me now?"

Chip thought, probably the same thing I do.

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They wandered through the streets, the market, chattering away. He, standing tall in the moonlight, fighting the hunched tendencies of the werehog, hands looming far in front of him like lanterns carried, like bloody swords. Following close behind, circling close behind like a vulture, horns speaking to its intentions, was that thing.

Looking at the creature through his binoculars, Dr. Prower couldn't help but be reminded of all the awful things he and his friends had once faced. Chaos' myriad forms. The Biolizard. Black Doom and his awful, mind-controlled minions. Those tiny horns, the long tail, the odd grin on its face, were wrong … And yet, It looked like Chip, it sounded like Chip as far as Miles' remote listening device could tell. Could it really be Chip?

And what was so great about Chip anyway? Miles spat to himself. He had been fond of the little guy in his own distant way, but even at his best Chip was slightly annoying. Always with Sonic, every waking moment, a cute little thing like a chao but with the innocent, curious mind of a person . Tails had to care for the airplane, work on the gadgets, keep everyone coordinated. So Chip had become a fixture at Sonic's side, always loyal sidekick and guide, teddy bear and football. Tails was silently grateful that Chip was at least male.

And there Sonic was, chatting away with a cheap impersonation of an annoying hanger-on, as his best friend watched, out of contact for a decade. Miles tightened his grip on the binoculars, snapping the hinge that held them together. All that work, all at time and friendship and talk of teamwork, and Miles was left behind. For what? For guilt? For Chip?

He put away the binoculars and went off to grab his equipment. He had work to do.

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They were overlooking a vast whirlpool in a massive river when it happened.

Sonic was about to leap from the pier and take them hopping along the debris, Chip could feel the tensing of muscles from atop his shoulders. Sonic would have to make a huge leap, running on all fours, to make it, and Chip would feel the salty wind in his face. He was looking forward to it, skipping from platform to platform.

Then there was a voice.

"Sonic," demanded a clear, deep voice.

Sonic immediately froze in place, the steady pulse in the sides of his neck stopping entirely beneath Chip's still fingers before resuming at a furious pace.

"Sonic, what is it?" Chip asked.

Then there was a loud whirr, the roaring of a fire, and a hydraulic hiss behind them. Chip turned his head to see a strange machine standing there, menacing. A round, backed cockpit was supported by two legs, rockets in the back slowly cutting off as it landed with a clunk. Two arms, fitted with the weapons attached at the sides of the orb, and a pale furry creature with cold blue eyes could be seen faintly behind the moonlit glare.

"Tails?" Sonic breathed, not looking, not moving.

A fist flew from one of the arms, hitting the werehog with a grunt and the twang of springs. Sonic screamed and fell, keeping above water by digging his claws into a stray plank in the whirlpool. Chip fell with him, and helped him pull himself onto the debris. Sonic panted, shoulders quivering with effort and fear. Chip breathed deep; he could indeed smell it, Sonic's fear, and pain and guilt, thicker and sweeter and stickier than ever. He wanted to lap it up, to bask in it, to encourage it, but he had enough sense to know that that would be wholly counterproductive. He needed Sonic on his side, no matter how resentful he might be over the past.

"Sonic? Who is that?"

The mech suddenly hurtled toward them, hovering inches above them. "My name is Dr. Miles Prower. Once, Sonic was my friend. But he left us alone in this crapsack world, and I'm going to have my revenge!"

"Tails… why?"

One of the mechs' hands drew up from the mech's side, grabbing Sonic's shoulder. Chip quickly flew away from him as the hand then flipped the werehog over and gripped him by the throat. "You were alive, all this time, but you left us to Eggman! The rebellion, the executions, the Gaia Force! You could have helped us and you were nowhere."

Sonic tried to choke out a response, but Miles dropped him, nearly shattering the board on which he had been floating. He gasped, "I… sick.. hurt… legs."

"Oh, I already know the bull story about your burned legs," he choked, voice creaking, squeaking. "Shadow tried to excuse you when the truth first came out. So did Knuckles, and Amy. But I know the truth-you're a coward!"

That was too much. "Leave him alone!" Chip shouted, barreling at the mech head-first. He roared in pain as the impact rattled his head, but the mech hovered in the air, unmoved.

"You stay out of this, you little fairy!" Miles pinged Chip away with the mech's robotic fingers, sending him plummeting into the whirlpool. He managed to surface to find the werehog grappling the robot. Surprisingly, Sonic was winning.

"I never meant to leave you, Tails! I could hardly get food and water without being caught by the drones!"

The mech shoved him back. "You must have known how bad it was!"

"Turning myself in would have only made it worse, Tails!"

He rotated his robotic hand, freeing it from Sonic's grip. "It's Miles! I'm Miles!" He decked Sonic in the face. Chip closed his eyes tightly, wishing not to see anymore, wishing for someone to save Sonic. "And what hell does that mean anyway?"

Sonic spat. Chip could smell blood. "You did the right thing, infiltrating him." There was a wallop of keratin on metal.

"You would say something that phenomenally stupid!" There was a slap, and a little cry.

Then a harsh clang. "Hey, you aren't that much smarter than me, twerp! You guys made him better. He's still bad, but he's better! Where… Ahah! Gotcha!"

Chip heard a hydraulic hiss and a scream.

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Miles screamed as his cockpit flew open, and a gray hairy claw reached in. Another claw followed, reaching for the buckles on his harness, and then the first pulled him out onto the wet wooden plank, claws digging in. He squeaked in fear as his face hit the wood, splinters in his fur, remembering being pulverized by Shadow.

"What the hell kind of friend are you, Tails."

"Miles."

"No. I call you Tails, you're always Tails to me. I thought we were friends. I hid the fact that I was alive because I knew no matter what you were going to do this. Sooner, and it'd be some kinda weird passive aggressive stuff about how I'm not strong enough."

Miles whined. "I couldn't have been mad that you were still alive. When you're alive, there's hope."

"I won't be around forever. Surviving being jettisoned of the arc, surviving Diablon's antimatter attack fighting Shadow… I've been real lucky. And I'm getting old, I'm already old for 25. Someday I'll be gone and you'll be here."

"What is that supposed to mean?" He sat up, looking at his old mentor. Sad green eyes peered at him.

"I don't want you living your whole life in my shadow. If you have to beat me up fine… but damn, Tails, did you have to pick water? You know how I feel about it."

Miles looked away. "I wanted control of your emotions. I wanted you to—"

Sonic screamed and fell into the water.

Miles panicked, looking around. Finally behind him he saw it, a Dark Gaia bird, violet, preparing energy blasts. Without a thought he threw himself into the water, diving deep, tails spinning like a propeller. He could see Sonic, sinking quickly toward a rapid whirlpool enough to tear ships apart, flailing. As it seemed too late, as Sonic's body began to be pulled in different directions, Miles wrapped an arm around his twisted waist and began pushing upward, swimming, trying to make it to air before the blackest night came.

He glanced down at Sonic as he spun his tails toward the surface, at the frozen fear in his eyes, semi-conscious, holding completely still to facilitate the swimming. He looked paralyzed, sitting there, and for a moment Miles thought he could smell sulfur, feel the heat on them. This was what he'd been looking for, he decided—pity. To be able to pity Sonic. To be able to help Sonic not because he deserved help, but because he needed it. Needed Tails, needed him for something more than just an airlift when the Marble Garden collapsed.

Finally they reached the surface, reached air. Miles gasped desperately and pulled Sonic over to a tiny island in the whirlpool. He immediately started doing first aid, trying to force the water out of Sonic's lungs, trying to get him breathing, as the sound of rocket launchers and screaming Gaia creatures echoed in his ears overhead. Finally Sonic took a gasp on his own, no water in his system after all, and MIles looked up. The villagers stood on the pier, firing weapons at the beasts, and Chip flew straight into Miles' chest.

"You saved him! Thanks, Tails!" Chip cuddled against him. "You're just as good as he said you were."

Tails sat down and smiled, sighing with relief.

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It wasn't as easy as Cream was, as instant. It wasn't like something snapped and made her good again, freed of the rage by pity. It was slow and awkward, careful, always regressing to anger. They sat in the little inn, surrounded by old villagers who'd helped them before, speaking of old times, new times, laughs and stories. Sonic told Tails of all the books he'd read, pretty girls he'd run into, all the natural wonders he'd spotted, the people he'd helped. The laughed about Amy's recent behavior, the dissolution of Knuckles' famed naivete. Tails shared his own exploits with women, largely more fruitful than Sonic's but somehow seeming less satisfactory, and his newest inventions. But every now and then the topic of Gaia came up, and Tails would turn back to it.

"I still l can't believe you did that to us."

Sonic sighed, sipping at a soda he clearly didn't like. "I can't believe I did either. How… stupid. That's like a crazy Eggman validation move!"

Tails rolled his eyes, stirring his drink with the straw. "I thought you didn't need anyone's approval."

"Not approval. Admiration, I guess. You don't have to like me, you just have to think I'm cool."

Tails looked away. "You asshole. You could dumpster dive for a living and you'd have been cool to me."

Sonic reached across the table, putting a claw on Tails' shoulder, hoping he might look into his eyes and see the truth. "And if I'd become like Eggman, would you still have loved me?"

"I don't know."

"Amy would."

Tails looked back, glaring, eyebrow raised.

"She'd love me unconditionally, whether I was hero or villain or tofu block. Because she was—and is—in love with a fantasy. I didn't tell her because I was afraid of her. But you, or Knuckles… you know the real me. And if you saw a part of it that even I didn't like…"

A bartender slipped them both fresh beverages, muttering.

"I just wanted a friend I could turn to, who wasn't a traitor like me."

Chip settled down in Tails' lap, hugging him. Sonic smiled at them, eyes welling. "But you seem happy as one of Eggy's engineers. Successful."

Tails sighed. "I was happy until the Legion got weird."

"Legion? You mean the Legion of Light? You're…"

Tails smiled sadly. "Either you died for him or he saved you. Of course."

"Tails, you know I'd never let a girl be this clingy, right? Or some guys, for that matter?"

The engineer splashed his drink on Sonic. "You jerk." But he was smiling, and Sonic realized he was too.

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They retired to Tails' room in the tiny in for the next part of the conversation.

"So if you're part of the cult, you must know what they're up to." Sonic sprawled out on the mattress beneath the thatched roof.

"You think Eggman is that stupid, Sonic? Each person only knows what he needs to know to do his part. Luckily for you," Tails bragged, flashing naturally fanged grin, "I have a pretty big part." He sat in a chair and started pulling off his damp boots.

"So what is Eggman's master plan?"

"He has me building colony ships for the moon, and Wave the Swallow designing and operating a domed lunar colony with mining operations outside the dome. Dark Gaia has no power on the moon, or so we believe"

Sonic took off his boots, too, chucking them into a corner. "So you think that's it? Trying to get away from dark Gaia? I expected more of him."

"Maybe you haven't lost your touch after all, then. There's a huge empty cargo hold whose contents aren't listed in the list of things I needed to accommodate, and a whole extra ship for colonists who could easily have gone in that space" Tails grabbed a tiny notebook on the desk an started sketching. "Both ships are designed for long term comfort—far longer than it takes to reach the moon."

"So he's going Black Doom on us, planning interplanetary conquest."

"Who's Black Doom?" asked Chip.

Tails shook his head. "A bit over ten years ago, before Eggman split the world, we were invaded by aliens. A race called the Black Arms, lead by an alien called Black Doom. He looked a lot like Dark Gaia, actually... It seemed like he just wanted the emeralds…"

Sonic finished. "But he used them to warp the comet he came on down to Earth. It sprouted tentacles and started releasing this paralytic gas. He was going to use the people of Earth as food!"

"Lucky for us, Shadow had been created by him. He was immune to the gas and the mind control, and he destroyed Black Doom and the comet using the Eclipse Cannon—the same cannon that Eggman reverse engineered to create what we at Reflection HQ call the Gaia… uh, maybe I shouldn't teach you bad words, Chip."

Sonic gave Tails a slight glare.

"Why are they bad words?"

"Not important," dismissed the fox. "But I'm sure you're right about that, Sonic: extraterrestrial conquest. If not, why not hold off on the second ship, or even the first, until after we fail to contain Dark Gaia?"

"So when is this all going down? When do the ships leave?"

Tails passed a rough sketch of the colony ship to Sonic. Sonic glanced at it, seeming not to see what Tails' saw in that empty space. Still, Sonic wasn't an engineer. He answered his old friend's question: "When you rekindle the last emerald."

"Rekindle?" Sonic's eyes widen. "Where did you hear that term?"

"Eggman."

"Only person I ever heard say that before was Chip."

Chip rose a little in the air at the mention of his name.

"When he called the temples to form the Colossus… uh, giant robot fighter made of the temples, he said 'Seven Lights of the Earth Rekindled.' I think. I was kind of trying not to explode from pain at the time."

Tails started chuckling, trying to fight it. "You… oh my god. You mean Amy was right about that?"

Sonic chuckled, which sent Tails into a fit of laughter. "Man, it's crazy she figured it out, isn't it? I figured you'd be the first one to think of giant robots. But," Sonic redirected, "Why would Eggman use the term 'rekindled?' 'Reactivated' or 'restored' would be more his style."

Chip suggested, "The Gaia Manuscripts?"

"Maybe. He seemed to understand them better than Pickle, and they were Pickle's life's work. Still…"

"We'll just have to ask Amy," Tails decided. He walked over to the bathroom and started brushing mats out of his fur. "But anyway, launch is whenever we get the last emerald from you, and Eggman stressed taking off in a hurry. We're talking a five minute span from launch order to takeoff. His plan must have something to do with Dark Gaia."

Chip frowned, flying over to Tails. "It isn't just over when the continents are fixed," he explained. "There's a battle for Gaia supremacy in the center of the planet. Usually it's kind of a draw, but Dark Gaia seriously won the last one."

Sonic sat up. Tails could see him frowning in the bathroom mirror, the look in his eyes like the biolizard as Shadow pierced its festering sores, like the look on Eggman's face whenever someone brought up the Queen's lost baby. Still, despite his face, his voice stayed even, warm and curious. "So maybe Eggman is trying to change the venue." He added, with a hollow, sad grin, "Maybe to a place where a tentacle from Inner space isn't going to eject him from the party."

Tails cringed, flashing back to the comet, watching strange tentacles reach out of nowhere, seeing it pierce the skyline of Westopolis from the strange screens inside. "It's amazing how much Dark Gaia looks like Black Doom isn't it? And acts? I mean, the comet, it had tentacles… Dark Gaia has tentacles. And they both have that weird thing on their heads…" Tails held his hands out at the sides of his head. "They're like horns," he explained to Chip, "only they extend sideways. Kind of like your ears."

Chip put his fingers in his ears self-consciously.

Sonic glanced at him briefly, brow furrowing, but before Tails could make anything of the glance, he went back to smiling. "We can't all have perfectly vertical fox ears like Dr. Prower, Chip. Relax. Besides, you guys are like twins. Light and Dark Gaia, good and evil twins, fighting for the planet. You're kind of like me and Shadow." Then he quipped, "I'm sure in a couple million years you'll meet under the Mantle for drinks and talk about that dumb blue hedgehog who made all those dumb jokes."

Tails looked at Chip, who looked shocked.

"How would Dark Gaia know about your jokes?"

"How did he know that Eggman was nothing but trouble, and to kick him out of the center of the Earth?"

Chip looked away. "I wouldn't want to hang out anyway, even if we are twins. One of us creates, and one of us destroys. It wouldn't work."

"Tails creates and I destroy. We are—were… best friends."

"Were and will be," Tails corrected, which finally brought the smile to Sonic's face.

"But not are?" Chip begged, casting a pout at Tails. Tails absently mused that he'd seen a better pouty face on Eggman himself, but kept his comments to himself.

Sonic ignored the question, circling back to Chip, actually standing and extending a claw. "Chip, you don't have to be anything you don't want to be. Just like how, even when I'm the werehog, my personality doesn't change because I don't want to give in… You guys don't have to be enemies. You don't have to hate each other. If your… brother? Is that the right word. If your brother can put it aside you can keep struggling, but make it more of a fun thing."

Chip's jaw dropped, and so did Tails'. Did Sonic really suggest that?

"Sonic," Chip whined, flying over, taking one of Sonic's claws in his tiny, spiny hands. "If the light loses, Dark takes over. Look at the awful things that happen when that happens. Are you really ok with the world being like that for millions of years?"

Sonic frowned, thinking. "No. Not really. But does it help you fight to hate Dark Gaia? To look down on him? I mean, he's probably just doing what he knows how to do. Is it wrong? Yeah. Is it stupid? Yeah. But it wastes your energy to sit there sulking about it. I hate Eggman, but I try not to. It doesn't help me to hate him. I even… I even kind of miss our battles."

Tails smirked a little, remembering their mech fight earlier. If only Sonic hadn't been so scared… then it really might have been fun.

Chip flew away, over to a window, overlooking a large house on the shore. Tails remembered watching the house built when he'd come here to scour for information on what happened to Sonic. Chip put his little claws on the window sill and asked, "What if I can't help but hate?"

Sonic walked over, putting a claw on his little shoulder. Tails couldn't see, but he imagined Sonic's fingers wrapped all the way around to Chip's waist on the other side. "It's normal to hate your enemy in a war. But it's not the only way to do things. There's never just one way to do things."

Tails smiled. For the first time in a long time, for the first time all night, he finally recognized his old best friend. He sat down on the mattress across from Sonic's and lay down. "Now can we get some sleep? I can't do this whole all-night thing."

Sonic chuckled, though through a half open eye Sonic could see that he was displeased. "I can't sleep at night, but you get some rest. You need it."

As Tails drifted away, he wondered if Amy's hypothesis was right. Did Sonic lose because of his health? Was this a good idea, sleeping when Sonic couldn't, when surely Sonic would press on without rest in the morning? Maybe he could just get a little nap. Just rest his eyes… He heard movement, and felt someone throw a thin mosquito net over him. "Good night, Tails."

There was something about antiproton popsicles, a brief falling feeling, and then nothingness. He dreamed of searching the Floating Island for Mina the Songoose's new album with the Sonic he remembered… the Sonic he'd see again in the morning.

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So Sonic and Tails walked through the jungle, laughing and smiling, still reminiscing on old times. Chip found that he was jealous, jealous of having a friend, someone he could talk to. Someone who remembered what it was like to spend all this time with him, to have something to reminisce about. He found he was jealous of the memories, having only little bits and pieces scattered over millions of years, little battles and little memories. And the thing he remembered, the thing that haunted him, despite his own inner knowledge that there was nothing to be ashamed of in it, that it was as it was. How could he tell Sonic? Why would he tell Sonic? The truth, about Light and Dark, about the endless battle?

So he flew behind them, listening to their recollections, to their strategies, trying not to think of his own concerns about the upcoming battle, the battle which was going as none in millions of years had gone before. Not since the dinosaurs had things gone so completely crazy...

"So what are we doing?"

The fox looked down at his hedgehog friend, seeming nervous. "When we get closer we're going to put on my cloaks. We're going to infiltrate them and I'm going to use my clout as someone who actually worked with Light Gaia to get the scoop on what they plan to do. We won't find out much here in Adabat, I don't think, but it's worth it to try."

"Why not save the covert ops for Eggmanland?" Sonic asked.

"Think about this, Sonic. It's an urban area. It's directly run by a guy who hates you, has always hated you, whom you try to thwart at every turn. It's the last temple, with the last emerald, after which there is an approximately three hour window between you leaving and that last emerald getting to the ship."

Sonic stopped in his tracks. "Last time the emeralds went to the temples, when the temples came to us. Do you think Eggman means to stop Light Gaia from using the temples?"

Tails gasped, stopping also, turning to face them. "But why would he stop Light Gaia? That's what we've been fighting for."

Sonic reached over, tapping Tails' face lightly. "Tails, think about it! His entire city, all his factories, run on Gaia Power-the Gaia suppressors! He would have to reformulate them to use Light Gaia energy, if it can even be used the same way at all!"

Chip was pretty sure that it could, now that he thought about it. He decided not to share.

"So you think he's trying to make sure it lasts this time? But... that doesn't make any sense. I don't know if you know, Sonic but... he and Vanilla lost a baby over Dark Gaia."

Sonic's face froze in horror. He quickly muttered an excuse and disappeared off into the brush. While Chip felt bad for him, based on the sounds he was hearing, he didn't see what was so bad about Eggman and that pretty rabbit queen he had. She seemed perfectly attractive...

"I know, the thought of Eggman with anyone's a pretty nasty thought," Tails excused.

"Is it? He seems ok to me. Is it the moustache?" asked the sprite.

"It's the fat."

"What's wrong with the fat?"

Tails raised an eyebrow at Chip, just as Sonic came back, wiping his mouth. "Tails. Don't ever, EVER tell me about Eggman's personal life within two hours of sunrise or sunset again. Ok?"

"OK. I wonder why it makes you so sick. I mean, your stomach doesn't change."

"Amy thinks it has to do with changes in intracranial and intra-abdominal pressure. Shadow thinks it's a deep seated revulsion at what I've become. Doesn't explain why I get so sick turning back, except that now the possession is getting to me in the middle of the day, too. It's like, my body at night, my heart by day."

"Maybe you're possessed by both Light and Dark Gaia?" Chip volunteered.

The two men stared at him for a moment, Tails with a look of shock, and Sonic, with betrayal. Quickly, Chip backpedaled.

"I mean, do you think we're both in complete conscious control of every bit of our essence at every corner of the earth? Do you really think I'm this tiny little sprite and he's this big, old, smelly, core-sized thing? We exist in every part of you, every blade of grass, every inch of soil. And when we're out to play, sometimes those little pieces of us wake up."

Sonic frowned. "So it really was Light Gaia force that kept my sanity last time, and over these last few years."

"No. I mean, it can't have hurt, but you're probably the most self-aware person on the planet, this little guilt trip aside! Sonic, you don't need Light or Dark Gaia to keep you sane. It's just easier for you when they're in balance, both tugging opposite directions. But that's only happening now, now that everything's screwed up."

"You couldn't have told him that sooner?" Tails criticized.

"I've been tell you things as I remember them, ok? This whole waking up a couple million years early thing messes with my memory." Chip frowned, reminding himself that for most part, that wasn't untrue.

"Don't fight, you guys." Sonic wrapped an arm around both of them. "We all have a lot to learn about each other and ourselves. Best we take that at our own pace." He glanced at Chip, and Chip wondered if he had figured out the truth.

Something, perhaps the sneering voice of his twin in the wind, told Chip that Sonic had figured out the truth long before Chip himself had learned it.

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The boys crowded into a corner in the ancient stone, looking up at the vast expanse before them with varying degrees of awe.

In the afternoon sun, tiny gemstones on the palace glittered even in the distance, flashes dancing as the structure wavered in the air. Little men and women in little green cloaks were everywhere, scurrying around with jackhammers and handheld electronics. New wire stuck out of even newer stone and mortar, shining copper in the day. The soft hum of a hover device shook them lightly as the eastern half of the Gaia Palace of Adabat hung over the edge of the waterfall, suspending the pseudo-ruin in midair.

"I noticed all the temples were new, and faithful to the old ones," Sonic murmured. "But wires and panels. I hadn't noticed them before."

Tails gently pulled the binoculars from the hedgehogs' hands. "I remember Eggman telling me that he planned to make the temples more Gaia friendly. Easier to move. But I was mostly kept away from that project."

Sonic's shoulders fell, and he raised an eyebrow.

"My ego. 'That's for lesser men, Dr. Prower.'"

Sonic smiled uncomfortably, biting at the inside of his lip. "Don't take this the wrong way, buddy, but—"

"But I'm a lot like him, I know," Tails finished, grinning. "And I'm not ashamed. I'm what he might have been, if evil hadn't taken hold."

Sonic nodded. "There was… is… good in him."

"And there's evil in me, but I'm the boss of it."

Chip tapped on Sonic's shoulder. "Uh, guys? Temple?"

So Tails picked up the binoculars and peered through them. "If we have something appropriate in our hands, and we don't talk, we'll blend right in with our cloaks. Leave all the talking to me."

Sonic flashed a smile. "Because you don't have one of the world's most famous voices or anything."

"You think I haven't had to blend in before?"

Tails reached into a pouch on his belt, pulling out a tiny, curved piece of plastic with hooks along the inner curve. He pressed a few tiny buttons on it an clipped it into his mouth, in front of his lower teeth. Then he spoke, chirping, high and clear. "Who would question the loyalty of Lady Wave the Swallow anyway?"

Sonic blinked.

"It's not very comfortable," Tails offered in Wave's voice. "But it'll fool most people's ears. Not any voice print tech, though."

Tails handed a cloak to Sonic and put on his own.

"So where do I hide Chip?" Sonic looked at his body, trying to find a suitable place for the fairy to attach himself.

"You don't. You don't have anywhere. I'll put him in my Tails?"

"As Wave? I think you need a little padding up front; put him on your chest."

Chip suddenly burst into the air, horns waving with excitement, tail wagging. "YAY! I get to ride in the fluffy stuff!" He spun in the air, cheering.

Sonic and Tails glanced at each other, both raising eyebrows. Then Sonic laughed, and Tails joined him.

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He watched as the other scurried about, trying to get the Temple ready. It was an easy job, really, supervising, making sure the preparations were compliant with both Eggman's requirements and local custom and religion. It sure beat waiting for Sonic to come with a fishing line, anyway. Not that fishing wasn't enjoyable, it just didn't help Sonic any.

So Jamal sat there watching, waiting for someone to ask him something. And after a while, they did. A all furry woman—or a short human woman, very top heavy. When he heard her voice, however, he froze.

"You there, you're the site manager?" she chirped.

"Yes… and you're…"

"Not enough of an idiot to reveal my name, and I hope you aren't either," she quipped.

"Sorry."

A shorter furry behind her with a sloping silhouette waited, foot tapping underneath his emerald cloak.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. Jamal thought for a moment and held out a thermos. "Tea and honey, if you want."

She clucked disapprovingly. "I'm fine, thanks. I'm here to make sure this temple can withstand what is to come."

Jamal pulled out a clipboard with a checklist from the box at his left. "Inertial dampeners, hover platforms, exit and entry shielding are all go."

"And the rest?"

The shorter furry tapped faster.

"We're maintaining soil contact but cutting lose rock supports. No Dark Gaia possessees beyond perimeter unless their name is Sonic the Hedgehog. Why did He send You to check on us?"

She paused. "Ours is not to reason why." Jamal could tell from the way she said it that she was quoting, but it wasn't something he recognized.

The assistant—probably Jet—tapped his foot even faster. As he moved Jamal found himself drawn to look at the fellow's feet, finally catching a glimpse of a red shoe with a white strap and gold buckle, going up at down and impossible speeds.

"I'll escort you," he said, stepping up.

"What?"

"You can take out the mouthpiece, Doctor." Jamal grinned. "I saw your friend's shoes. We have a date with destiny."

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The Earth shook beneath them, and they grabbed hands as they prepared.

"A chaos control that far is essentially random. I'll zoom in on fake emeralds or chaos drives naturally. Jumping through the planet like that will make me very ill—long distance, a lot of time outside, a lot of navigating… I'll at least swoon, if not faint outright. You'll have to carry me out of the way of wherever we land."

"I can do that, Sonic. I've carried you before."

"I didn't completely change back, Tails. I'm bigger, heavier…"

"I grew up and I worked out. I didn't just develop my mind."

"This is it, Tails, Chip."

"I'm ready."

"We're crossing the Rubicon here."

"Just go, Sonic."

He closed his eyes, and they fell.


	9. Chapter 8: Eggman Empire

Chapter 8: Eggman Empire

He was ready.

When the news reports came on the TV in the staff lounge, reports of Adabat sliding back into place, he complained of a burning in his flesh. His coworkers promised to cover for him and sent him toward the medical area. He jumped down a laundry shoot, turning at an angle to clear his broad shoulders. At the bottom he grabbed an emerald robe, tucked his white hair into it, and pulled it tight over his white chef's clothes. Then he walked out onto the street, pulling his ear.

A cab drove up and he casually opened the door, sliding in. Once the door was closed, he glance din the rearview mirror and smiled.

"Is it time?" Ask the young voice up front.

"Yes. How many have you got?"

The soldier turned to look at him. "It's like Westopolis, sir. I have two."

The old man shifted in his seat. "I pick pocketed three off various visitors. And stop calling me that."

"Maybe I'll be able to call you that again."

"I won't give you the chance."

"Then I'll have to vote for Sonic, won't I?"

"You and me both. But I doubt he'd run. Maybe Amy."

They rode in silence for a while, the elder man every so often checking a watch hidden underneath the sleeve of his robe. Then a flash illuminated the backseat, and a pop shook them. Two furry figures appeared on the floor at the old man's feet, curled up in each other, tangled, a strange little monster between their heaving chests.

He took in the sight of them, his once proud nations' oldest, youngest heroes. A gentleman with yellow fur, touched with white, was holding his companion with strong, muscular arms, pressing the hedgehog's face protectively into the fluffy white fur of his chest. The hedgehog in question was older, seeming almost shriveled despite an extra few inches of height, but still clad in royal blue spines. The red and white shoes on his feet were a piece of history, and sadly, so was the dazed look in those bright green eyes, so far away. But as they leapt into the darkness, as they came fully into reality from the chaos control, the hedgehog screamed.

"Sonic!" cried the fox.

He began pushing away at Tails, hard, pushing with claws that tore through his white gloves. He roared as his spine lengthened, his teeth warped and grew and sharpened, slicing a part of his paling beige lip. Watching it—seeing it finally—made the old man feel sick.

As the werehog collapsed on the floor of the cab, as the goggle-clad fox climbed into the seat, the chef removed his hood. He felt a certain satisfaction at being recognized and remembered as Dr. Prower's blue, reflective eyes went wide in the dark.

"Mr. President? You're alive?"

"Dr. Prower," he chided gently, "My term expired eight years ago. I'm commander of the Federation Underground now." He smiled, watching the wheels turn in Tails' head. Their companion, a spritely creature with waxy blue wings, with horns and claws, looked on, confused.

"Whoah, I finally get to ride in a car," the creature murmured before flying down to Sonic, slapping his face gently with sharp claws.

"By the way, Dr. Prower, I'd like to thank you again for saving my escape pod from aliens all those years ago," he offered, reminded of the Black Arms by the ugly creature tending to Sonic. "You could say I was… inspired by your hands-on approach."

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"All along, old friend, he's been using our teleporters. Why stop now?"

Knuckles paced the floor, staring at his boots. Behind the desk, Eggman sat, head in his hands.

"Spagonia to Holoska, Holoska to Chun-nan, Chun-nan to Shamar, Shamar to Adabat. When he revealed himself, he started travelling by our teleports."" Eggman sat up straight. "Something must have changed, Knuckles. You know him and Tails, better than anyone does. Did Sonic say anything to you in Mazuri?"

Knuckles looked at his ostensible ally, at the panic in his deep blue eyes, pince-nez lying ignored on the desk. "He told me that he didn't trust you. That this was all your fault."

An eyebrow shot up on Eggman's bald head. "It doesn't seem like him to blame."

"Ivo. You unleashed every horrific abomination on the world and expect a 15-year-old boy to stop them all?"

The two glared at each other for a second, years of distrust and confusion unraveling in each other's eyes.

"So you blame me too, then. You think this is all my fault."

Knuckles sat down at the chair across the desk, sinking down into its plush recesses. "It doesn't matter if it's your fault. What matters is that Sonic thinks so. You need him, Ivo. So, earn his trust."

Eggman glared.

"Look at you! You've become such a goody-two-shoes. What happened to making people think you want the same things as them?"

The old man's tiny jaw fell. "You're implying that I don't want to make things right."

Knuckles laughed. "I never thought we'd have a conversation . I'm implying that you've gotten so caught up in being honest that you forgot how to be persuasive about it. You don't ever seduce me into anything anymore. Er, that didn't sound right. I mean, you don't ever goad and lead and whittle away at my will. You don't offer me what I want and make it look like we want the same thing. You just kind of tell people, because you're the Emperor, that's what you do. So, come on, be the villain for five minutes. Lure Sonic into your trap. Only instead of a trap, have it be exactly what you promised."

Eggman tood, looking at Knuckles, pondering him. "Who of my people would he trust, Knuckles? Not you-you were once too gullible, he'd think you're in my pocket."

"Shadow's too much a loose cannon. Cream's too attached to you."

"Amy. Dr. Rose. I'll position her at the shrine to collect the emeralds once the continent is restored and the emeralds, rekindled."

Knuckles cocked his head to the side. "Collect them? What for?"

"To make sure Light Gaia doesn't lose. Can't necessarily let Super Sonic fight all our battles, now can we? Please tell Shadow to pack his wife a lunch."

Eggman stood, walking out of the office, royal red robe swaying as he walked. Knuckles wished he knew what exactly he had just done.

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"Target has been obliterated."

"Excellent. Now they won't find us."

Sonic opened his eyes slowly, world swimming around him. A pair of warm, haggard blue eyes loomed over him. He didn't recognize the face around him, but that voice…

"Sonic. Please relax. We need you well for the upcoming battle."

"You… weren't you the president?" Sonic groaned.

The man's unfamiliar face reddened slightly. "I guess the plastic surgery didn't really take, now did it? It seemed to fool Eggman enough. Then again, I suppose he wouldn't look too hard among his staff for a dead president."

Sonic took a long look at the unfamiliar face as his eyes began to focus more easily. Here and there he could see faint scars along a nose or cheek, an ugly face looking down on him with gentle, familiar eyes. A few strands of long, white hair dangled just out of Sonic's focus.

"Where am I?"

"A Federation Underground safehouse."

Sonic giggled. "You know what your initials spell out, right."

"I have informed the former president of the apparent double meaning of the acronym. Query: What should be done with the remains of the tracking device?"

"Just discard it, Omega." The former head of state ordered. "You deactivated it in the cab, and the lieutenant has the emeralds. We can't be traced now.

"Omega?" Sonic asked, glancing off to the side, head spinning as he moved. There was the red and black robot, tossing a small device into a garbage bin. Significant changes had been made to him; the robot's once triple-clawed hand now had five fingers, with more points of articulation.

"This might be a lot for him, sir," noted Tails.

"Then I'll cut to the chase. We'll be mounting a full assault on the front gate of the Gaia Temple soon."

"What?" Sonic sat up, wavering. The statesman supported him with a hand on his spines. "Why?"

"So you can sneak in the back unhindered," answered the old man with a smile.

Sonic looked around the room. The former president sat at his side, clad in a simple white chef's outfit. Omega stood there regarding him sadly, next to a door. Tails sat nearby, Chip sitting in his lap, looking pensive.

"Mr. President … you and Omega have been fighting Eggman all this time?"

He nodded.

"Never gave in?"

"Objective unchanged: Obliterate and depose the EGG-MAN."

Sonic grinned. "So what do you know about Eggman's master plan after we restore the last emerald?"

"You'll have to ask Dr. Prower; he's closer to that information than we are."

Omega made a pre-recorded throat clearing sound, and then spoke. "At 2132 local time, the Egg-man released a news bulletin. Its contents included: an alert to the city regarding the arrival of a Sonic the Hedgehog, details of a reward posted for the safe return to the palace of Sonic' the Hedgehog, standing orders to freely admit and cater to Sonic the Hedgehog at all businesses, and instructions for how to obtain payment for services and goods rendered to Sonic the Hedgehog at the expense of the crown."

Sonic started to speak, but Omega trumped him.

"Probability of trap: 78%."

"You said it, Meg."

"Sonic the Hedgehog is in error. Designation is E-123 Omega."

"Ok, Meg."

Omega retracted its five-fingered metal claw, revealing a buster arm. "Designation is Omega."

"Quit squabbling, you two," barked the statesman. "It's entirely possible that Eggman gained a conscience and means well. But we can't chance that. And any information we could get from Shadow on the situation inside is of questionable veracity, given his slip of the tongue against the Emperor."

"Amy?"

"Missing for the moment." Sonic thought his heart stopped. "Her home, office, and Shamar and Spagonia labs are not returning calls."

"Maybe she's busy," Sonic stammered.

"More likely that she's a sort of hostage," Tails quipped.

The next thing he knew, he was standing on the Palace steps, staring up at the great green structure, raining running through his fur. The tower rose over him, its shadow mingling with that of the old ferris wheel to his back. He remembered getting up, the president and Omega protesting. He remembered Tails begging him not to go. He remembered looking into Tails' eyes, not saying anything, just leaving. He remembered Chip calling out after him.

He remembered telling Chip to stay back.

He remembered deciding to do this on his own.

But it felt so faw away now, like he'd watched the decisions unfold the Night Palace.

A fifteen-year-old pulled the strings from the center of the earth, a decade prior.

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Security was no match for him.

Not that they tried to stop him anyway.

He burst into the banquet room sopping wet, rain dripping off him onto the marble floor. The rags of an old bandage clung to his wrist, and all he wore in view besides it were his shoes and rage.

"Eggman," he roared, pointing.

The music stopped; most of the guests froze mid-bite. Knuckles, clad in a simple red mantle, and Rouge, in some kind of black evening gown, dropped their forks entirely; Shadow's hand fell to his side beneath his cloak. Cream stood, her orange gown gleaming in the candlelight, and the Chaotix all sunk in their seats.

Eggman stood, smiling wide, moustache curling upward with the rest of his face "Sonic," he welcomed, "How—"

"Where is she?" he demanded, storming toward the table.

"Who? Sonic, you seem a bit agitated."

"Amy! Where is Amy?" He walked up to the table, slamming his claws into the wood.

"She's… at the temple," Eggman answered nervously, raising an eyebrow.

"What?"

"She's waiting for you at the temple, to prep you for the final battle." Sonic's face contorted in confusion. "I doubted you'd show up here, even though you were invited, so I sent someone who'd help you to your ultimate destination."

"She's not a hostage?"

Eggman doubled over laughing, slapping the table. "Hostage? Hostage! Oh, my admirable adversary, no! Long gone are those days for me. Amy is on duty as an Imperial Guard to the Gaia Temple. I've deputized her today. She need only call in, and Knuckles will replace her."

Sonic stood there, blinking. Eggman stepped out around the table, around the empty place at his side, smiling. He raised his jeweled scepter just enough to look commanding, his robe swaying in a manufactured breeze. "Sonic, please join in our feast in honor of your long life."

"There's no time for this," Sonic stammered.

Eggman stepped close, leaning in to Sonic's ear. "We can't have you at anything but top form in that final battle. Eat, be merry, sleep. Shadow will be your guard; I know you trust him. Then, rested and well, the temple is yours."

Sonic stood there blinking, looking deep into Eggman's blue eyes. He tried to see past them, trying to find the burning, drumming hunger for power he'd always seen there. Instead all he saw was worry.

He felt his knees begin to buckle.

"You chaos controlled here through the core," Eggman noted, whispering. "Your heard is pounding. You're weak, maybe even dizzy. You're weary from a decade of being hated like me, of being this monstrosity, from weeks of changing back and forth. Be the life of the party, the center of loving attention a while. Be the possessor of a full stomach, and then the occupant of a warm bed. Let's start over again, rested like we were before Green Hill."

Sonic sat down at the table.

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She waited and waited, watching the stones lay silent. After a while, the altar began to glow, and she looked around, trying to find the source of the disturbance. Were Sonic and Chip here already? She couldn't believe Sonic could move after a jump like that.

She gasped when it was a human-sized green robe that appeared in the doorway. Chip followed after the figure, blue wings fluttering in blue light. "Amy!" he shouted, launching himself at her chest, burying his head in her dress. "I'm so scared!"

"Chip? What is it?"

"Sonic stormed off looking for you," came a deep voice. The human pulled his hood, revealing a warped face and long, white hair.

"Do I know you? Wait, what?"

"He thought Eggman was keeping you hostage and ran toward the Palace," Chip explained.

Amy stood, thinking, frowning. "This… this is a disaster."

"It's far too late to rescue him," noted the man. "We'll need to wait."

Chip paused. "We could trigger the continent without him," he pondered, nervously, looking away. "But I don't know if I'm ready."

"He has six emeralds. We have one," noted the man.

"We're all over the place. Not ready at all. We wait." She looked up at the sky. "Be ok, Sonic."

Chip cuddled up to her, and she wrapped her arms around him, protectively.

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He was wined and dined, asked of his adventures, smiled and cheered. He almost felt as if none of it had happened until he bit his own lip with sharp teeth. When sleep overcame him, he was lead to a grand bedroom by a red and black claw and an apologetic smile.

He woke up with something pressing into his throat.

"Faker."

He opened his eyes. Shadow stood over him, a hedgehog rather than werehog, black and red and sharp. A violet gun, large like a rifle but seemingly sawed off, was pointing at Sonic's neck.

"Faker, you and me need to have a little talk."

Sonic blinked, trying to place himself, trying to figure out where he was. Silk sheets under his bottom, the scent of orange and motor oil in the air. Hadn't it all been a dream?

"Shadow… What?"

"My wife, Sonic."

"What about her?" Sonic tried to it, and Shadow shoved him down with the gun.

"You spend all that time alone with her in Spagonia. She says next to nothing about you afterward. Then you blow your own plan to bits to come rescue her all half-cocked when she's not even here?"

"Shadow, nothing happened."

Shadow slapped him with the end of the gun, eyes blazing brown.

"Do you think I don't know my own wife?"

Sonic reached out to punch him, but found his arm pinned. "She's changed since the old days."

"So have you," Shadow sneered.

Sonic squirmed under his grip. "Shadow. I'd never make a move on her without your permission. You know that."

"Since when do you care about authority?"

"I don't give a rip about authority! Friendship!" he growled. "I care about ten years of friendship. You were there for me when I couldn't trust anyone else; I wouldn't do anything to hurt you unless you were putting the world at stake!"

"So you repay me by sleeping with my wife." Shadow cocked the gun. "You're going straight to—"

"Step away from the jerk," came a woman's voice at the door.

"Rouge," Sonic murmured gratefully.

"Stay out of this, woman!" Shadow turned his head to look at her. "This is between the faker and me!"

"It's between you and Amy, and no matter how much proof you had of their innocence you'd still be doing this. They lusted in their hearts, so they're unworthy in your brown eyes."

"So."

"So your eyes are red, Shadow! You're possessed! Now get off him!"

The same symptoms I had, Sonic thought.

"I'm only possessed at night. This is broad daylight!"

"Light Gaia strikes by day. That's what we think."

Sonic took advantage of the distraction to curl up his leg and spring it out, kicking the gun out of Shadow's shaking left hand. It discharged into the heardboard, blowing the wall behind open to the sunny Empire day.

Shadow roared and drove a foot down into Sonic's stomach, screaming, "How dare you! I'm Shadow the Hedgehog, the Ultimate Life Form!"

"I'm your friend," Sonic retched, curling up into a ball and spinning. Shadow fell on top of him. He threw Shadow off him with the soles of his shoes and climbed on top of the other hedgehog. Hands on biceps, knees on thights, he tried to hold the enemy down without having to hurt him. "Shadow, I'd never do that to you"

"Like you'd never lose?"

"Says the man who defeated me. On the Black Comet, remember? Just to prove a stupid point."

Sonic fell suddenly as Shadow disappeared, reappearing behind him with a pop. He gasped and Shadow wrapped his arms around his neck, driving Sonic's spines into his own torso. Sonic gasped desperately for air.

Shadow and Sonic struggled there, Sonic trying to find breath and Shadow pulling him tighter. He could feel blackness coming, nothingness enveloping him, he could feel time running out. So he reached into his mind, trying to remember the things that stopped Shadow before.

But then Rouge spoke. "Shadow, stop! I beg of you."

Shadow let him go, backing away, a sickening pull on Sonic's spikes as he let go. Shadow gasped, "Maria."

Sonic struggled for breath, trying to gasp and cough and choke away the darkness. Rouge came over to him, cradling him. "Sonic."

"Good thing... Gerald...wrote…"

"Good thing Amy had a plan," Rouge reassured.

"What was I thinking?" Shadow exclaimed.

"I don't know, Shadow." She left Sonic and began tending to Shadow's wounds.

Sonic rolled over on the bed, trying to wipe the feeling of blood off his spikes.

"Why is this happening to me?" Shadow asked.

Sonic closed his eyes, trying to still his heart.

"Tails and Amy both think that Light Gaia is also possessing people," she informed.

"Tails?" Sonic gasped.

"He's downstairs. He came looking for you, worried."

Sonic closed his eyes and let everything fade away.

hr

There was no getting around it now, no escape, no choice. He had presented himself to Eggman and so he would act in Eggman's rules. The Monarch, his friends, followed him to the temple, Shadow walking slowly, limping, bandaged all across his chest. They were shallow wounds, at least, and he was more contrite now, sorry. Sonic felt like he owed Amy an apology with each glance at his double. Knuckles and Rouge flanked Sonic, as guards, now clad in old battle gear that didn't quite fit; Cream and the others were there too. Eggman, complaining of a bad knee, was riding in a hovercraft, which concerned Sonic somewhat.

But what could he do?

So he found them in the center of the shrine, waiting, leaning on each other as they sat on a stone: Amy leaning on the wall, and Chip leaning on her lap, both asleep. Nearby a man paced, a man who was once president. He froze upon seeing Eggman.

"Aren't you my chef?" The emperor remarked.

"Uh, consider this my resignation," the man mumbled.

"Mark Jachin, is that you? You treasonous swine, how've you been? Been elected to anything illegitimate lately?

Amy and Chip stirred at this, and the old man crossed his arms.

"Dr. Rotbotnik, this is really not the time for a political discussion."

"No, it isn't. Sonic, Chip, would you please do the honors?"

A sleepy Chip looked from Sonic to Eggman. "Sonic, how could you?"

"Chip. We all want the same thing. He found me, I couldn't turn him away, and..."

Chip flew up, into the air, staring. "How could you, after all he's done to me? After..."

"Chip, what has he done to you? I mean, aside from cracking the planet." Sonic frowned, certain he knew but unable to say it.

"Oh, Light Gaia!" Eggman threw himself to his knees. "Forgive me my trespasses, for I knew not what I do. Please, forgive me, allow me to make it up to you. Help me make the world right!"

"You insincere jerk," the little fairy swore. "You don't mean a word of that."

"Not even your name, my liege?" He taunted. Sonic was sure now...

"Oh for crying out loud!" Amy walked over to Eggman and held out a hand. "Give me the emerald."

"That's hardly a way to make a request of your Emperor," he chided, handing it over.

Amy grabbed Chip by the tail. "Listen, Chip. You and Sonic can argue this out while we wait for the battle with your other, whichever other he is. Fix the continent so we can start making progress. We've waited ten years, isn't that long enough?"

Chip seemed to stare at her for a minute before saying, "I like your style, Amy. You always get what you want, even if sometimes you don't want it anymore."

Shadow started to shout "YOU LITTLE—!" from the back of the crowd, but was silenced by Rouge's hand over his mouth.

He reached over to activate the pedestal, bringing it to light and life. Amy grabbed the emerald and placed it on the shrine, causing the emerald to shine white, finally. The earth began to shake, and Eggman began to laugh.

"Oh ho ho... I'm free! I'm finally free!"

Celebrations and hugging began, kisses and shoulder-lifting, tears and laughter. It was only after the Eggman was already gone that Sonic reached for his gemstones.

"Uh... anyone else here missing a Chaos Emerald... or six?

hr

They headed back to the Chaotix' apartment—the Palace was too risky. They crammed in, pushing themselves, all of them, into the huge apartment; they were so many that still it was crowded. The former chef called Omega to guard the door as they entered and Charmy buzzed over to the TV. Every news channel—which was a grand total of two, one official Eggman news station and one with abbreviated headlines and entertainment news-both reported that the last continent was returning to its place, estimated to seal back into the rest of the crust in about a day.

"This is great news," Shadow cheered, grabbing Amy and pulling her close. She grabbed his arm and pulled it off.

"No, it's not, Shadow! Eggman has the emeralds and Dark Gaia still has to be defeated."

Sonic noticed that Chip hugged him a little tighter.

"Which means Sonic needs to be there," Charmy decided.

It was then that Rouge laughed. "Charmy, you think Sonic was there the last million times this happened?"

Sonic stood, silent, letting the conversation play out. They knew more than he would; they would lead him to shore if only he listened.

Knuckles shut off the TV. "This isn't going to help us any further. I spoke to Eggman a little while ago. He confided in me that the reason he planned to take the Emeralds was so that he could use them to power Light Gaia against Dark Gaia."

Shadow stepped forward, shoving Knuckles. "You knew he planned to take them and you just let it happened?"

Knuckles shoved back, lightly. "You'd have to be an idiot not to know that! I didn't feel like stating to obvious."

"You always were gullible, Knuckles," Tails noted.

"Yeah? Well this time, you guys are the ones gullible! All that hugging and stuff going on and you don't even secure your emeralds? You got pickpocketed by a 50-year-old megalomaniac who can't even wipe his butt without a robot. Good job."

Amy answered his criticism with a raised mallet. "Knuckles. I know you're proud of your recently acquired ability to scrutinize what people tell you, but you really can't talk about dumb decisions."

Sonic cleared his throat, and everyone stopped.

"Blame doesn't get us anywhere. It's not like we're asking who stole a cookie—we know who took our emeralds, we don't need to point fingers anymore. Tails. Tell us about Reflection."

"Ships to the moon, blah blah blah, leaving with the emeralds, blah blah blah. I would have stopped us at the temple but this place is closer to the launch site than the shrine and we needed to regroup and see just how secret this is being kept." Tails pulled out a small computer, calling up a map. "I'm not supposed to know where the launch site is, but there are benefits to one, dating the princess for a while, and two, having designed the launch site." He showed everyone the location, and the fastest route.

"It'll be guarded," Shadow decided. "We'll have to Chaos Control."

"And there may not be enough room for us once we get there. Yes, there is a giant cargo hold in the Royal Ship, one with no stated cargo to design for-but I have an inkling that it's going to be filled, with Light Gaia or equpiment. All the temples have been fitted to survive 'exit and re-entry,' as Jamal in Adabat put it. I can only assume that means atmospheric."

"I can chaos control two people at a time, but not all that fast," Shadow said.

"I can take myself, one other, and Chip," Sonic noted.

"So," Knuckles decided, "We need to pick the people who'll be the most useful."

"We'll need fighters." Sonic looked for a piece of paper. "People who can fly or chaos control, to fight Dark Gaia. That was what screwed me up last time, trying to chaos control close enough to get a good hit." He glanced at Shadow. "It's a lot like the Biolizard battle. How hurt are you?"

"Not very. Count me in."

"Not so fast, guys," Tails noted. "You also need people who can help you infiltrate Eggman's infastructure."

"We've got you for that, buddy." Sonic reached up, patting the fox on the back. "So I'll take Tails and Chip. Shadow's got whom?"

"Rouge and Charmy" he decided. "Best chance of getting airborne."

Amy put away her mallet. "The rest of us will go to the spaceport and try to get on board on our own terms. I'm fairly confident, if we make it inside, that I can slip a keycard off someone and sneak in."

"I'll lead, Sonic." Shadow glanced at Sonic, and Sonic smiled. "I can get us away from the Chaos Emeralds. We don't want Eggman to see us."

"Don't forget, he has chaos detectors everywhere. He will know we've chaos controlled onboard," Tails warned.

"A chance we have to take!" Sonic decided. "Hold on to your goggles, Tails."

Shadow took Rouge and Charmy's hands. "Chaos Control!"


	10. Chapter 9: Lunar Palace

Chapter 9: Lunar Palace

**Author's note: Sorry about the delay. I was pretty sick last week. Just one chapter and an epilogue after this! Almost home! Also, I realized now that my hr tags are being left as text. I am too busy right now to deal with that on account of a number of life changes, including a JOB! Yes, a job! So I'll clean that up later. You guys know what it means. Also, apologies to TV tropes for the lampshading.**

**hr**

He found himself leaning against Tails.

The world spun with chaos control as things fell into place around them. He could see Shadow out of the corner of his eye, a dark shape against the pale, shining silver of the corridor. The other two blurs at Shadow's sides shuddered as they landed.

Then there were arms behind his shoulders, behind his knees, a peculiar rotating sensation, and he was being carried.

"I designed the basic layout of the ship," Tails panted, moving fast down a corridor, faster than Sonic remembered him being. "Let's see if my sensor blindspots made it through Eggman's revisions."

Sonic wrapped his arms around Tails carefully, not sure if he was steadying himself or congratulating the scientist.

hr

A swipe of a mallet, a squeak, a simple sleeper hold, and a swipe of a card, and she was in. A few minutes later, so were they.

Knuckles watched as one by one, Amy took out guards, workers, astronauts, with simple holds and pressure points, sneaking up behind them. Espio was at it too, though Knuckles eyes could only catch a waver of his movements. They worked silently, the only sounds the squeak of a hammer and the swish of shuriken.

Knuckles knew firsthand of Espio's stealth abilities, but he'd never believed Sonic's tall tale about Amy breaking him out of Prison Island the time he was mistaken for Shadow. He always figured Sonic had exaggerated her minor role in the escape to build her self-esteem and possibly get her out of his hair. After all, how could she sneak, the way her hammer squeaks?

But it was true; she did it easily before him now, efficiently, as if she'd practiced for years.

"Where did you learn that?" He asked, as she obtained the last astronaut pass for them.

"Do you think my parents just let me leave to follow Sonic all the time, Knuckles?" She grinned and pulled the unconscious astronaut into a supply closet.

hr

The launch countdown droned on behind him, but his excitement was marred.

He looked over his shoulder, at the first officer—of course, as the Emperor, he was captain.

"Has the hedgehog been found yet?"

"No sir," answered the green squirrel, frowning. "Last recorded location was on deck 30."

He tightened the straps on his launch suit, royal red with green trim, and glanced over at his wife and daughter, similarly bedecked. Cream's face was lit up with hope, eyes shining, as her mouth frowned. He reminded himself to have a word with her about her disloyalty on the moon, after it was all over.

"I'm sure we'll find them," he reassured the squirrel. "In the mean time, let's stay on task. They won't kill themselves just to stop us."

"Why would they defy you?" The princess asked. " You only want to help."

"It's clear to me, daughter, that somewhere in Adabat, Sonic was infected by Dark Gaia, or that his previous possession took some kind of hold, broke past some barrier deep in him. I know Sonic; his willpower is unparalleled, but we all have our limits." Eggman cleared his throat, gesturing. "He wants to stop us from honoring and supporting Light Gaia—probably out of some kind of Dark-induced self-deception. Maybe he thinks that little creature travelling with him really is Light Gaia. Maybe he thinks I'm going to abuse or exploit his old friend somehow—and I suppose it's fair he does, as last he knew me, I would have. I—"

"Two… one… we have liftoff!"

Eggman let a little grunt as his inertia caught up to him, as the liftoff began. He looked out the wide viewing window at the ship's nose at the wide blue sky, dotted with purple tinged clouds, and wondered how badly Sonic and his friends were bouncing around on the lower decks. He continued his explanation—he wasn't going to let his villainy get in the way of being a good Evil Father to his morally ambiguous stepdaughter. "I had hoped he might come to our side, see the truth and my sincere contrition… but clearly he's lost to the enemy. Once we make our offering to Light Gaia, he will be able to save Sonic, but I fear it's beyond us.

She let a little hmm, chirping, almost supportive. He cursed her politeness. He knew she didn't mean it.

hr

Tails fiddled with the door when the PA picked up.

"Citizens!" came the Emperor's voice, cheerful. "Welcome to the Tempest. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times." He chuckled to himself, and Tails found himself chuckling along. That was a good one. Behind him, he heard Rouge groan in annoyance.

The old man cleared his throat and continued. "In all seriousness, our journey is going well, but there is one minor, although expected, snag. We have some stowaways. Sonic the Hedgehog is, by all accounts, possessed by Dark Gaia, and the poor soul is being deceived into trying to stop us from restoring Light Gaia to his glory. Pity him, friends."

Tails glanced behind him as he worked the whiles, seeing Sonic sneer, glaring at nothing with tired eyes.

"While it is tragic that once again his heroism failed us—"

Tails shuddered, telling himself that he didn't need to see Sonic's response to that.

"—we must abbreviate our pity."

Unable to resist, Tails glanced back, looking at Sonic, whose eyes shined in the harsh light. In that moment Tails could see every time salt water flowed into one of Sonic's wounds, every time he turned on the news to see Eggman back at it. He could see the disappointment on Sonic's face as Shadow gloated about being the ultimate hedgehog as wounded aliens languished around him, the fallen blue hero, and the Diablon prototype.

"Sonic… don't listen to it," Tails whispered, turning back to his door.

"With him is Dr. Miles Prower, who is no doubt naively helping his old friend. Dr. Prower, I urge you to reconsider Sonic's sanity and return him to us for treatment. If you do not, and we find him in your company, there will of course be charges of high treason to contend with. I cannot afford allowing your sad little crush on the poor man to endanger the safety of the world."

Tails twitched, muttering to himself, "it's not a crush," trying wires against each other.

"We also believe that Shadow is with him—Shadow, old friend, the same rules apply to you. I know you have been helping Sonic all these years, and your charity is noble, but he is a danger to us all. Please consider your naivete for a second—would Maria want you to risk the whole world for a single man?"

Tails heard a spitting sound, and smiled.

"We also suspect two others are by his side, though at this point it would be foolish to speculate their identities. We have also noted a number of colonists checking at the door but not reaching their designated launch room. We can only assume this is another party aimed at our sabotage, lead by Dr. Amy Rose and Inquisitor Espio. Amy, I'm very disappointed in this step backward following Sonic, and I sincerely hope you've been honest with Shadow about this. Because you two are so close to me, and have so blatantly subverted my plan, this is unacceptable. If you submit yourselves to me now, I will take execution off the table."

"I've almost got this open," muttered Tails. "There are so many decoy wires in here… he knew what I'd do."

"Also with them is a tiny creature called Chip, a horned being with blue wings. Chip is, in fact, the earthly avatar of Dark Gaia, and is extremely dangerous."

"Lies!" Tails rolled his eyes at Charmy's outburst, fairly certain that Eggman was right.

"This whole lot is very dangerous; some of them are armed, and some of them don't need to be. If you see them, quietly report them to your supervisor. Do not engage them; you only risk injury and infection, and fights are exactly what Dark Gaia wants."

The door popped open and Tails leaned in, looking down, trying to see what strange cargo Eggman had planned for it. He saw… a brushed metal floor. He had plotted this cargo bay to be fifteen decks deep, lightly padded at bottom with asylum grade padding, wide enough to accommodate about two Egg Lancers. The Egg Shedu was stowed away in a separate, documented bay, of course. But this was just a wide room, one deck deep, right where the bay was supposed to be. Steel walls, steel floor, nothing inside.

"He changed my plan!" Tails murmured, careful not to step in.

The others crowded around the door, looking in.

"This was supposed to be a fifteen deck cargo hold! It's like seven percent the size I was told to design."

"So it was a trap," Rouge decided, pulling Tails gently away from the door.

"We can't hide here," Shadow decided.

"We shouldn't even go in." Sonic bit off part of his claw and threw the piece into the room, as if to check for traps.

"So where is my cargo hold?" Tails shuddered. Sonic wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"Let's try the next level down."

"Anyone see that? Charmy buzzed in.

"Charmy, no!" Shadow tried to follow, but Rouge yanked him back.

Charmy flew to the floor, picking up a small, pink object. A slip of paper. "Ooh, Dr. Prower, you got pink-slipped!"

"What? He can't fire me, I qui-"

As Tails shouted, the door suddenly slid shut. Tails grabbed at Chip, who was still peering in; Shadow jumped back. It was Sonic who shouted, "Charmy!"

"Uh… "

"I'll make sure the prisoner's treated well," came a voice from behind.

Tails turned to look; there, in a sleek green space suit was a hawk of the same color. "You got me on board, Sonic. Who better to work security against you than a famous thief."

Sonic grinned. "Thanks. You ok, Jet? You were looking pretty rough back in Shamar."

"Don't thank me; run. The cargo bay's a decoy, all traps. Get out of here before you get me in trouble; I'll take the bee to the brig."

They started to run, but Jet called after them, "Sonic!"

Sonic stopped in his tracks, turning to look; Tails stopped to watch him.

"Don't end up like my dad."

Sonic's jaw dropped, and after an eternal second he asked, "Bean was your dad?"

"Yes. Go!"

Sonic nodded and took off again, and Tails followed.

hr

They huddled carefully in the service tube, admiring the plaque that hung on the wall inside, a dedication to a skunk construction guard who had died when a previous version of the section had collapsed. He thought of them, imagining them, thinking of them as he stepped through, into the bridge, guards at his sides standing too close.

"I have to do this honest," he had told them, and honest he would.

Eggman stood as he entered. "Highness, what an honor to see you. Do you think you could have gotten here without displacing my scientists?"

Knuckles crossed his arms. "You didn't even tell me when launch was," Knuckles said clearly, absently trying to figure out how to explain this foreknowledge to the others, who listened through the microphone stuck in his deadlocks. "I wanted in on this, Ivo. It's my planet too. I want this to succeed."

"You can't fault me for not wanting to be caught gullible, old friend," the Emperor chided, dismissive. Knuckles took a step forward, throwing his arms out and down.

"Ivo. I've vetted him. He just wants a piece of this. You should have offered him the chance to get involved, or at least informed him of what's going on. He expects betrayal, so he anticipates it, and he acts on it."

Eggman sat down, shouting, "Oh ho! I should have vetted you. Betraying me so easily?"

"Says the pot to the toast."

Cream giggled, and Knuckles shot her a glare, shutting her up.

"Knuckles! You know that I'm a changed man. I'm astounded at your lack of faith in me."

"I'm astounded at your lack of faith in us. We can handle the emeralds for you, we can handle Sonic for you, but we can't help you put this to bed once and for all? Ivo, this is not the way to build a loyal inner circle."

Suddenly, faster than he could blink, at almost Sonic-speed, the Emperor was looming over him, leaning, white moustache almost touching Knuckles face. "I don't need loyalty when I have fear. I humored you because it was right and because we had the time and the wiggle room, but this is far too important."

"That's the thing about getting in bed with your enemy," Knuckles muttered, "you open yourself up to him. If even one of us dies, is executed, imprisoned, punished, your empire is going to dissolve, because they remember us protecting them from you. You built your empire on our submission; they won't stand for you kicking the dog."

"Are you threatening me?" He leaned in, oily nose touching Knuckles' wet one. His teal eyes stared back at Knuckles over those mirrored blue glasses, and Knuckles tried hard to suck the hate out of his face.

"I don't need to threaten you, Eggman. I've learned a lot about how groups of people think, running sanctuary on the island. And you know just as well as I do that what I've said is true-it's not a threat, not a promise, but a fact. What I'm offering is a way for you to make everyone happy-give the people their heroes, us our piece of mind, and you your security."

"You're on my ship, you shouldn't be offering anything. I should be taking."

"Some things can't be taken, old friend. Do you want our help or not?"

Ivo considered. Then, he went to his chair, pressing a button.

"Tempest, this is your captain speaking. I have just located His Highness, Knuckles of the Floating Island. He has informed me of the intentions of our stowaways and I would like to apologize for my hasty dismissal. It seems they shared my concerns about possession-of me! Imagine that, how silly. But these are trying times, and I appreciate their concern. We have about an hour before we begin deceleration, and I'd like them to be secured in comfortable seats by then, so please direct them to the Bridge if you see them. That will be all."

He released the button, and Knuckles crossed his arms.

"Do they taste good?"

"What?" Eggman considered him.

"The half-truths we tell? Mine make me gag when they come out of my mouth."

"Knuckles, old friend, you have something to learn about discretion. Tell me, now, who's on board, and in what configuration. One of my elite agents has already captured the bee, but he insists the others were gone when they found him."

"Sonic has Tails, Chip, Shadow, and Rouge. Charmy was with them."

"I know; only Tails could have broken into that vault."

"Everyone else was with Amy, Espio, and me. They're in one of the service tubes. I'll go get them."

"I think that would be a fine idea."

hr

As they were lead off the winding path, off the ship and onto the pathway, Sonic gripped at Chip tighter, looking off into the distance at the skyline. Shining white marble reached up over the gray moonscape, the highest tower seeming almost to touch the transparent bubble arching over the colony. Below the tower Sonic could see lower buildings and palaces, towers. It reminded him for a moment of Apotos, so much that it sent a chill down his spine. Chip clutched at his chest, pulling himself closer, and Sonic returned the gesture.

There were more guards than he liked stationed with them, more guards and less freedom. As all the colonist disembarked, security personnel already waiting on the surface directed them down various corridors that stuck out from the terminal like starfish arms-like Doom's Eye. The next thing he knew, Sonic was being pulled one way, Amy anther, Shadow another still. The next thing he knew, he was in a comfortable chair, alone, a table across from him, a screen hanging on the wall.

After a while the screen activated, Eggman's frowning face appearing on it. "Sonic! Hope you enjoyed the trip."

"I might have more if you hadn't been trapping people."

"Now now, that's not the attitude I'd expect of a stowaway. Look, I'd like to have a word with you, in private."

Sonic drummed his fingers on the table. "Egghead, you have me in private."

Eggman tilted his head, revealing his teal eyes, and cast them downward, toward the fairy nestled in Sonic's chest.

"Anything you can tell me, you can tell Chip."

"I don't feel like telling Dark Gaia all of my plans," Sonic.

Sonic felt Chip tug at him, but ignored it. "You're saying Chip is Dark Gaia."

"Yes. Isn't that right, 'Chip?'" Eggman sneered.

"If Chip is Dark Gaia, then where's Light Gaia, Eggman?"

The old man looked away for a second, frowning. "I... oh, it's no use lying to you, Sonic. I was hoping you could tell me. I really do think that Chip is Dark Gaia-I mean, look at his appearance; look at how deformed and dark he is. But if he's not Light Gaia, where is he? Did he die saving you?"

Sonic stood up, still clutching Chip. "So, if you don't know where Light Gaia is, why are we here?"

"To get away. To see if we can do anything about the impending eternal night with the chaos emeralds. I..." Eggman chuckled sadly, putting his head in his hands. "I'll be honest, Sonic, I thought you had things in hand. Last time and this. I... I thought you'd come through for us."

Sonic groaned. "Oh come on, this isn't like you at all! What happened to master plans and getting all of us on being predictable!"

"That's exactly what I banked on, Sonic! You, being predictable!"

Eggman looked up, and they stared at each other for a moment.

"I'll send for someone to get you some sleeping quarters," Eggman decided. "Your face, it looks a little pale."

"Space sickness. It'll pass."

"I hope. Farewell, Sonic."

The screen switched off, and Sonic glanced down at Chip, smiling.

"Sonic?" The little fairy asked, reaching up.

"Yeah, Chip?"

He flew into the air, hovering before Sonic, violet eyes shining in the warm light. "Sonic... if what he said was true... you know, since I don't remember…"

Sonic laughed, pulling the fairy close. "It is true, Chip. And I don't mind; bad guys need friends too."

He felt Chip shudder suddenly in his arms and pull away, flying up to glare at him. "Are you calling me a bad guy?"

"No." Sonic stood. "But everyone thinks you are."

The little fairy turned away, frowning. "When did you figure it out?"

"I'm not sure. It dawned on me slowly. And you remembered in Adabat, didn't you? Just like your brother did last time. Only you tried to hide it from me because you think I've got a thing against you."

"You don't?"

"Not a thing. You know the guy I hate; you were just a pawn in his plan. Hard to blame Chaos or Shadow for the evils they did at his bidding. I mean, if you keep taking over the world, I will stop you." The two shared a look, Chip glaring, sharp little teeth bared. Sonic narrowed his eyes a little, warning, and then smiled. "But for now, why not be friends? Why not live and talk and have chili dogs and soda together? Why not just do what we want to do and let destiny catch up with us at its own pace?"

Chip seemed to consider that, floating on his side. "So... you mean..."

Sonic kicked his feet up on the table in front of him. "Oh, I hated you at first. You changed me, warped me, and all of a sudden I had to face my own dark side. Didn't like it. It made me… question myself a little bit. But once… once I saw the Light Gaia creatures, once I figured out your brother operates the same way… I can't blame either of you." He reached up, grabbing at one of Chip's tiny hands, pulling it toward himself. Chip allowed himself to be pulled into a hug.

"Why not?"

"Because life is all about balance."

A guard arrived, and Sonic stood. He looked down, reassuring. "And we're going to put my life back into balance tomorrow. Yours too."

hr

"Room service!"

He certainly hadn't ordered Room Service. He was pretty sure you couldn't even get it here on the moon. He didn't even feel like getting up, much less answering the door, but still he did.

She stood there in a military uniform, clearly designed for a woman taller and plumper than herself, smiling.

"Are you trying to get me killed, Amy?" He grabbed her arm and pulled her in gently, faster than she could move herself, sliding the door closed.

"Shadow's getting Tails right now, so if anyone ought to be jealous, it's you." She grinned, ear to ear.

Sonic sneered, sitting down on a brushed metal chair. Then he jumped up as the cold clawed at his skin. He grabbed a blanket off the bed and threw it on the chair, then sat back down. "Very funny, Amy. A real knee slapper."

Amy sat down in another chair smoothly, bare lower thighs touching the metal without incident. "Where's Chip?"

Sonic indicated the bed, where the little creature was curled up in a mass of blankets and pillows, smiling in his sleep. "I haven't seen him rest this easy since Spagonia."

"It's about him. I need to talk to you about him, before we meet up with the others."

Sonic stood up, walking over to the little fridge in the wall. He pulled out a carton of juice, but then glanced at it, reconsidering. With the mental image of himself, keeling over, paralyzed, he put the juice away, looking at Amy. "I think I know what you're going to say."

"If you know, why are you still working with him? He's the enemy! He caused all of this." Amy stood up, growling.

"Eggman is our enemy. Not these guys."

She advanced on him, hammer dropping toward him, but he deflected it with his arm, pushing it harmlessly to his right. She shouted, "How can you believe him?"

Sonic glared. "Why would he help me restore all the continents if he's all bad? And those creatures in the daytime. They're Light Gaia creatures; Dark Gaia has no power during the day, he never had. Maybe Dark is not Evil and Light is not Good. "

Amy frowned. "Pickle said something like that before he died. Something about… Light and Dark are all a part of life."

Sonic stepped closer to her, unsure of what he was about to do. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close, against his body. She stiffened at the contact, but did not resist, and he fought the throbbing in his blood, begging for her.

"Sonic?" She whined a little, pulling away gently. "What do you think you're doing? I—"

He leaned in close, until his lips were almost touching her ear, and whispered, "Pickle is alive."

She froze, gasping.

"Hiding in Shamar. He was in danger."

"Sonic… there are cameras. Eggman will see us, and show Shadow…"

"So fight me off; we'll blame Gaia."

So Amy pulled her hands up to his shoulders and shoved him, pushing him back onto the bed. "How dare you, Sonic! You had your chance, years ago!"

"Amy…" Sonic hammered the bed with the bottom of his fist. "If I'm going to have your husband try to kill me for something, can't it at least be true?"

She grunted, walking toward the door. "You aren't even the same man I remember! You were never like this before."

"I always took you for granted." Sonic looked down, pouting, hoping he was working whatever hidden cameras were in place.

"I have to get you to that meeting, pervert. Follow me, quietly. And take him. We can't leave him unattended."

So Sonic scooped up the little creature, trying to ignore the confusion swimming in him, the game of denial and lust that wasn't really a game anymore. He held Chip close, and the fairy stirred in his arms, nuzzling his chest with a quiet little snore.

"He's been tired, since we got here," Sonic mused, rocking him.

"We're on the dark side during a new moon. Direct sunlight."

"So my old buddy is probably going nuts right now."

"I miss him, Sonic."

"I miss him, too, Amy. I miss everyone. Everyone except you."

She looked up at him with a little gasp, confusion in her eyes—but he wasn't still covering for the secret he'd told her.

"You've grown up into a real hero in your own right. You were too hung up on me to be much of anything before. I guess I'm better as an idea to strive for than a guy to follow. But if we don't see each other after this is over… now, I would miss you."

Sonic walked out ahead of her, and she followed. He wondered just how bewildered she might be, but dared not look back, not until they made it out.

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"You can't stay here," she squawked, clearing a table. "I only let you gather here in the first place as a favor. You'll have to conduct this somewhere else. If the emperor finds out I helped you, I'll die on this rock."

"Wave." Tails reached up, touching her face. "I'll get you and Storm out of here."

She batted his hand away with a gloved wing. "I could make a million comments about how funny you're acting lately, Tails. I won't unless you make me."

Sonic and Amy slipped in the front door—at least, Wave thought it was them. She wasn't going to acknowledge them by actually looking, only glancing them out of the corner of her eye. Still, she was curious how the long dead hero was holding up, so she took a long look around the room. Sonic was walking toward a stool, looking mostly as he had plus a few inches of height and circles under his eyes. He was clutching in his chest a little dark, horned creature with a pink orb on its neck. The others looked mostly the same as they did on TV, though Knuckles was a little sharper, Rouge a little thinner, and Shadow exactly as he'd been ten years before.

Jet was the last one in; when he arrived, he scooped Wave into a hug before sitting.

"The train for the Darkside Reflector leaves in two hours," Wave informed. "That's the amount of time it will take to ready the reactor."

They all fell silent.

"Eggman's trying to outpace us," Tails mused.

"I'm sure his soldiers are on the way her to capture you all for breaking curfew. I'm here gathering my tools before I go out to prepare the reactor. We must be brief—"

"Ergo, the plan must be made elsewhere."

"Hey, I remember you!" Sonic shouted, turning toward the door. Wave looked as well.

The little orb-headed robot stood there in the doorway, eyes glowing pink. He ignored Sonic's comment, continuing, "Ergo, we must leave quickly, before guards arrive. Ergo, you must follow me."

"Why would you help us?" Wave opened the lab's back door.

"Eggman is possessed by Light Gaia. Ergo, his current orders are contrary to his usual whims. Ergo, he is not really the same man. Ergo, I must disobey him to honor my creator's wishes and restore him to his usual, unpleasant self."

Tails started for the door; the others began to stand and follow. As he passed Wave, he mused, "So do all his rebels make Eggman a good roboticist or a bad one?"

She smiled and ushered the others out. As they left, she watched Jet slip up to Sonic and Amy, pressing something into her hands. Wave felt her smile widen.

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The train glistened in sunlight under a black sky. Far away, a ball of fire rained down onto the cratered surface with little drops of marble and plastic. Far away, a great shining mirror glistened, calling to him like a shrine.

Sonic adjusted the straps on his shoes. He could feel the sun beating down onto him, into him. Here more than ever he could feel the Light telling him to judge, to strike down Eggman. It was a feeling he never would have thought could have come from a friend.

He grabbed Chip and held him close, protective, as he waited, watching the people scurry around below. His blood ached for the sunlight, and it soothed his other yearning.

He waited for a sign.

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"I came as fast as I could." He bowed to the emperor. "They said I'd find you here. I suppose you already know—"

"That you've been plotting with them, yes."

"You don't want an ear on the inside, Ivo?" Knuckles took a small step closer, eyeing the portly emperor in his green protective suit.

"I can pay someone to do that much better than you." Eggman pulled the strap on his gloves tight.

"Ivo, why are you acting this way? I told you where they were on the ship. I told you how to get Sonic to come; I practically delivered him into your hands with my suggestion."

"Knuckles, I highly doubt you intended him to show up like that."

"No, I figured he'd go right to the shrine, to her, and we'd all go to the moon together. You're not good at sharing."

Eggman cleared his throat, pressing a button in his wrist cuff. "I'm tired of your games. As of this moment, I lay claim to Angel Island." He stood. "My troops will invade and any resistance will be put down.

"It'll be a great addition to the Knuckles Empire once I get rid of you!" he quipped awkwardly, launching himself into the air. He expected arms or laserfire to stop him, but instead his knuckles sunk easily into the Emperor's throat. The portly man tumbled to the ground, his head tumbling away, shedding wires and bolts. Knuckle started to stand, to run away, but two long whips snaked out of the body, orbs linked together. He screamed in recollection, almost smelling the Hidden Palace and his own burnt flesh. Without thinking, Knuckles pulled the device from his dreadlocks and pressed two buttons: first the detonator, then the teleport trigger.

He saw whiteness, felt fire, but it was all so far away.

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They were ready for them, too ready, tackling the blue, flaky hedgehog to the ground as Amy and the others looked on in horror. Soon her hands were in cuffs. Tails put up a fight and had to be put in a sleeper hold by a robot. Amy found herself cursing, come on, come on, when she heard the explosion behind her. She made a point of trying to look, a show of it, her head gawking awkwardly. She cried, "Knuckles," not entirely faking her concern. It was a nasty little backdoor in Eggman's transport systems they were using, and despite Tails' insistences she was not sure it was going to work. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Sonic drop down onto the train, and she enjoyed just a second of satisfaction.

"Win this time," she thought to herself as they dragged her away.


	11. Chapter 11: Darkside Reflection

Chapter 10: Darkside Reflection

They took the chance of chaos control to get off the train and found themselves surrounded by machinery, giant coils that would dwarf even a human, glowing circuits and coils, pistons…

"Sonic… what is this?" Chip flew up, moving toward one of the coils.

"Don't touch it unless you have to. This… it looks like the machinery inside the ARK. I wish Tails were here to help."

"What's it for?"

"From what I can tell, Eggman wants to do something to Light Gaia. To make him stronger, or to break him up and use him for energy. Either is bad for us, I think."

"But I thought you guys were friends?" Chip flew over to Sonic, who was looking around the computers.

"I think we are. But… I can't take a chance of Eggman exploiting him like he tried to exploited you."

Sonic jumped into the air, curling into a ball, spinning. He came down on the device with a crash, and Chip clapped. Then he stood.

"Whatever Egghead is planning… He's not going to do it now."

"Hooray! Thanks for protecting me from Light Gaia, Sonic."

As Chip flew off toward the exit sign, Sonic reached into the rubble and pulled out a packet of freeze dried food, murmuring, "Sorry Chip, but I can't trust you just yet."

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It seemed like they wandered the corridors for hours, looking for clues and looking for water. Looking for things that weren't there, in the ghost town of an array, walking across the covered walkways between the mirrored panels. They hid their eyes from the sun, Sonic shielding Chip with his arms, his body, even as it came from all sides.

"Sonic, look!" Chip cried suddenly.

He glanced up, ahead, as a little dark spot moved through a corridor across from them. Suddenly the post at the corner of the hexagon erupted into a brilliant violet glow.

"That's the emerald. He's putting the emeralds at the corners, and one at the center… He's going to power this array with them." Sonic turned around, seeing a blue glow behind. He looked across the divide of the array, seeing all the colors…

"What's it going to do?"

"Oh, you'll see that soon enough," came a voice over the PA.

A dark form came hurtling at them from down the corridor. Chip tried to fly away, but Sonic grabbed him by the tail and pulled him close, standing his ground. The figure rolled into view, wheels on four legs at the corners of rectangular body, cold green. Sonic recognized the design from that robot Eggman had been driving around the Black Comet, insect-like bent legs with wheels at the bottom, though this time all the bends went in the same direction. The top was not rounded for his pod, as the old robot had been, but a rounded rectangle, more like the body of a horse or a tiger. More familiar, though, was the shape nestled atop the rectangle, narrow legs sticking out the side, a wide, round body sitting atop, the green generator center hidden inside the car, just a little glow seeping out. A great revolving gun hung on one arm, a claw sat on the other, clutching a little blur of pink about the waist. Sonic only had seconds to recognize the Egg Dragoon's design before he realized Amy was clutched in its claw.

"Amy!" Sonic cried, reaching out to her. He was surprised to see her hand go into her blouse.

"I'm surprised at you, Sonic" Eggman taunted, face barely visible inside the tinted cockpit atop the robot. "Don't you want to see Chip restored to rights? The real one, not that fake in your arms. All you did together, all you stand for…"

"Eggman," Sonic spat, "You haven't got a clue what I stand for, and you never have."

"No, I see perfectly well that you stand for getting rid of me, no matter how I might have reformed." Sonic thought he saw Eggman cross his arms inside the cockpit.

There was a sudden thud, and a cry of "Oops!" He glanced up at Amy, who was reaching toward the floor. "My water bottle!" He locked eyes with her, and saw no fear in her green eyes; she instead smiled, giving a little nod. He thought he heard a clanking sound as well, but he dismissed it as a quirk of yet another robot.

Sonic realized as the bottle rolled to his feet that he hadn't had a drop to drink since they left planet. Of course Amy would pack water, too afraid of Eggman poisoning their food here. He snapped it up and drank it, trying to ignore the artificial sweetner and strawberry flavor.

"…Amy, where were you keeping that water bottle?" Eggman boggled.

"In my blouse. Come on, you made Cream search me, you think she'd look there?"

Eggman chuckled, beaming. "I can't even blame her for that one. Ever the polite child, isn't she?"

"Eggman, don't try to be friendly right now. It's creepy after what you did." Amy's face was contorted in horror, and Sonic was tempted to ask, but there was no time.

"What I did? I can't b-"

"Look Eggman," Sonic interrupted, "maybe you have changed. But you're still sneaking around, not telling anyone what you're up to." Sonic took a last drink and cast aside the empty bottle. "If I knew what you were trying to do to my friends—both of them, Dark and Light Gaia—I might not be trying to get in here and thwart you at every turn."

"Trying being the key word there," snickered the old man.

"You notice I left your little pylon things alone down there. I'll listen." Sonic crossed his arms.

"But… you smashed that machine?" Chip looked up at Sonic, puzzled.

"It was a vending machine for workers, Chip. I didn't want to break anything until I knew what it did."

"Why did you lie to me?" Chip flew up in his face, blazing. He slapped Sonic with a tiny claw; Sonic felt a sting as the claws hit him.

"Pot-kettle, Chip. Shut up a minute and let the madman talk." He gently pushed the fairy out of his way. His face was turned toward Eggman, visible in the Egg Dragoon-like upper body's cockpit, but his eyes were on Amy, squirming in its arms underneath, hanging near the Egg Dealer-like wheel apparatus.

"It's very clear that Dark Gaia is a threat to everything we stand for, everything we are. How better to ensure that no one fails to stop it again than to empower Light Gaia. With unfiltered, reflected sunlight, the source of Light Gaia's power, he will become unstoppable, protecting our world forever from your little demonic friend." Eggman gestured to his right and Sonic followed, glancing down into the center of the Reflector. There, bathing in the glow of the white emerald, stood a great creature, mauve and white, with a green glow. Great insect wings, like a butterfly's, glistened in the reflected sunlight, seeming to dance in it, spinning slowly, great claws in the air. Sonic felt his knees buckle.

"Chip."

As if hearing him, the creature turned to face the walkway on the perimeter, looking with great green eyes. Two on his face, and a closed one on his chest, where the green bauble now on Sonic's wrist had once been. He waved a claw, revealing another slit in the palm of his hand…

"Chip!"

"Oh look, he's happy to see you. You two will have to get caught up after the procedure. I brought some freeze dried ice cream for the occasion. Now, will you help me dispatch Dark Gaia so we can start the homecoming?"

Sonic looked at the smaller, dark Chip, "He's my friend, Eggman. No one is going to defeat him but me."

"Isn't she your friend?" He gave Amy a squeeze, causing her to scream.

Sonic frowned, grunting.

"It's ok, Sonic. If he hurts me, his death warrant is signed!" Amy cried. "I'll die if it means getting rid of him."

"What a betrayal, Amy. Glad I saw it coming. For a moment I almost thought you were my friend." Eggman pulled her up to his face, peering at her like a child conversing with a doll.

"I was, until you kidnapped me and killed Knuckles! Jerk!" Sonic couldn't see her face, but he heard a spitting sound, and the sound of windshield wipers. He tried to dismiss it, tried to convince himself it was part of the charade. They wanted everyone to think Knuckles was dead, right? "What kind of friend uses you as a hostage?"

"You thwarted my plans!"

"I'd thwart Sonic's if they were wrong, too."

Sonic leaned over. "Chip, can you summon the temples like your brother?" He's not dead, he's not dead, he's…

"Not without breaking open the glass. All the air would rush out, we'd die!"

Eggman continued his argument with her. "I'm so tired of all of you, espousing these values of friendship and then ignoring them. You're hypocrites, all of you! Even Sonic, flouting his own ideals. And especially that terrorist Knuckles!"

"Giving someone a chance to redeem themselves is flouting ideals? How many times did he let you live?"

"I got away! Each time!

"He let you! Every time but the last."

"Which so-called hero are you talking about, Amy? Sonic didn't know what he was doing!" Eggman hissed. "Now, Knuckles, there's someone who knows how to deal with the enemy. Too bad he's so gullible. Really thought that was me. Hrmph."

"What?" Sonic asked, puzzling, feeling a chill. Not again. No, it's not true, it can't be true, it.

"Oh, you aren't questioning why I'm still alive here? When he was sent to assassinate me?" There was a pause as Sonic fought not to scream, everything out of focus. "Oh, Sonic didn't know what Knuckles was doing? That's kind of rich. Babying him now, like some kind of broken hero..."

"What? That's what he was doing?" Sonic growled. "Amy, I thought he was just blowing up a power plant!"

"It was his idea!" She shouted.

"And he paid for it with his life. His little teleport device malfunctioned; he overestimated Tails' hacking." Eggman sneered. "A fitting death for a traitor."

Sonic could feel everything in him, Dark and Light and Sonic, calling for vengeance. He could see what he thought must have been the last look on Knuckles' face in his eyes, he could feel his eyes tearing up. He was just about to leap for the cockpit when Amy said something that took his breath away.

"Ivo, think for a moment. Who do you think gave him the bomb?"

Sonic snapped out of his rage, suddenly finding himself staring at Amy.

"You don't mean…"

"It wasn't me, but it was one of ours. Do you think he's the only one? We knew you would take Tails or me hostage to manipulate Sonic, because you always do." Amy scoffed. "You're so predictable, even Knuckles was starting to see it. It was Charmy's idea, to give Tails and me the last of Jet's—of Bean's— bombs. Even a fool like Charmy knows what you do."

Eggman sputtered inside the machine, shaking. "You can't mean—"

"And you grabbed me by the waist, and you left my arms open, so I could gesture when I begged Sonic to save me, the way I would have ten years ago. Flail my arms around like I do, for the drama. You always bought into the stupid drama." Amy laughed openly, throwing her head back as she reached into her blouse. Her laughter shook the arm, making it creak wildly. "Oh Ivo, all these years you've stayed the same, but we've changed."

"I'll crush you!" He roared.

"And my dying twitch will detonate it, and we'll all die together, tyrant and traitor." She pulled the bomb out in full view.

"You wouldn't kill Sonic!"

"He can take care of himself," she shouted, not even looking at him, face turned to the robot.

Sonic was just about to try and chaos control her out of Eggman's grasp when there was a shudder, a crash, and a scream. The Egg Dragoon's arm fell from the robot, Amy screaming. Tails, missing a few chunks of fur, and Knuckles, singed black from head to toe, hung from the arm socket, waving with hands clutched around screwdrivers and ratchets. Tails fumbled for a tighter grip, while Knuckles gave the robot's body a kick, grinning. Amy disappeared from the arm's clutches, reappearing a moment later with Shadow, covered in flaking blue paint.

Sonic was entirely unsurprised when, a moment later, Eggman turned the Egg Shedu around and disappeared down a corridor.

He happened to know exactly what to do.

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Sonic raced, as fast as his feet could carry him and still keep pace. He wasn't as fast as he used to be, but neither was Eggman's robot.

He had done enough reading in his ten years' solitude, and in the cargo holds of the Tempest, to know this one was called the Egg Shedu. It made sense; the Dragoon rode on some kind of horse-like bottom; a Shedu was an old Centaur-like creature. Now that he knew that Knuckles, Amy, Tails, and both Chips were safe, he felt comfortable enough to muse about Eggman's tastes as he chased down the enemy. It felt almost like old times, until he thought back to Empire City-to Ivopolis, to Eggmanland. To the people living in fear, cameras everywhere, a city once bright darkened by that monster. It wasn't fun and games, not anymore.

So as they passed under the next emerald, he leapt into the air, using Chaos Control to boost his jump, to land on the Shedu's back. There he found Tails and Knuckles, trying desperately to both avoid the flailing of the gun arm and disassemble the Gaia Generator powering the thing.

"How did he make these security measures? This thing is impenetrable!" Tails gulped.

"It's the new one! The one he was showing off before all this went down!" Knuckles growled, punching it. "It's this bar! What kind of metal did he use?"

"If I were the werehog," Sonic started, before the arm knocked him away. He tumbled, rolled to the floor and tried to pick up speed.

So he started running again, this time finding Chip at his side.

"How did you catch up to me?" Sonic panted.

"I'm drawn to that generator. I can resist going in, because I'm the real deal but..."

"We can't get to it," Sonic panted. "There's a bar."

"You've gotta try. Here... I think I can help you..."

Chip grabbed Sonic's shoulders and shuddered through the air. He felt the familiar change come over him, that cold pain in the pit of his stomach, the ache as his arms loosened. He reached up, grabbing the rear of the centaur robot and climbing on as it teetered unevenly on the corner. He scurried over to the others as the feeling returned, his arms reverting to normal, gloveless. Chip wavered, and Sonic caught him carefully with one last stretch.

"I can't reach!" Tails shouted, his namesakes twitching angrily.

"You have longer arms than me!" Knuckles shouted.

"Let me at it." Sonic rushed over, handing Chip off to the blackened Echidna. Tails handed him a screwdriver, and pointed to the screws on the side of the bar protecting the generator. Sonic tried to reach in to it, but he found his arms just a bit too short.

"Chip! Can you give me another stretch!"

He gagged as the claw touched him, as the feeling came over him again. He pushed his arms down, down, feeling them stretch out, his fingers shaking as his claws grew. He gripped the screwdriver tightly, turning, turning, feeling another emerald pass overhead. Turn turn turn, that bolt out, he moved over to the next.

"I can't hold this up much longer, Sonic! The essence I'm pouring into you is getting sucked into the generator!"

"Hurry, Sonic!"

Sonic, hand shaking, tried to match the screwdriver head to the large screw, trying to get it to go in. It slipped once, twice, before finally making contact. He turned his hand as fast as he could go, turning, turning, until finally the screw popped out and the bar fell away. He pulled back from the casing, and was knocked from the back again by the Lancer's gun arm. This time, it fired at him, and he scrambled to get out of the way. As he backed into a corner, and the bullets came straight at him, he looked up at the sky, hoping for a miracle... and his whole being was enveloped with green. He glanced out the window, to see the strange creature in the center looking at him, with smiling eyes on a mouthless face. He put a hand on the glass before standing up and going after his friends.

Another emerald passed before he was able to get back on top. Now Knuckles and Tails were bashing away at the reactor, Tails using a long-handled ratchet and reeling as the red-purple miasma surrounded him. The monster robot was slowly losing speed as Eggman screamed from within, "No, no!" Inside the body Sonic could hear the popping of a release, a scraping as it caught somewhere. Sonic was about to deliver one last blow to the device when a loud roar interrupted him. He felt himself starting to move before a green glow blinded him, and he found himself, little Chip, Tails, and Knuckles floating in a warm space. As the green glow around them dimmed he could see broken safety glass floating in the low lunar gravity, the smoking remains of the Egg Shedu rolling down the corridor, the violet emerald glistening where they had started, the tower on which it rested unharmed. Tiny forms of pink and black waved to them from one of the hexagon's spokes, leading into the center of the array. Sonic quickly surmised that the array had airlocks, and he tried to start a Chaos Control. Shadow finished it for him, and he washed up in the corridor at their feet. He began to laugh.

"Man!" he panted. "Never thought... I'd be... the wrench!"

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They all raced toward the hexagon's center along a corner spoke, toward the glowing light of the white emerald. As they approached, rainbows of light danced from the prismatic emerald.

"What was that explosion?" Sonic asked. "I didn't know Gaia Generators did that!"

"It wasn't the suppressor, Sonic!" Amy chided, keeping up far closer than Sonic remembered. "It was the bomb Jet gave me! Shadow threw it!"

"I could never have hit it if you guys hadn't slowed it down," added the hedgehog. "How?"

"It was the new suppressor," Knuckles explained, trailing last. "The one he was showing off right before. Sonic managed to open it with a screwdriver!"

"Open?"

"There was a bar across it, we couldn't break."

Shadow looked away.

Sonic held Chip—the Dark Chip—close to his chest. The little creature seemed drained, oblivious as they ran. A cloud of raspberry light followed them, outside the safety glass over the walkway, little motes of color attacking every seam, every bend, trying to get home. Sonic wondered what would happen if the Dark Gaia essence never made its destination.

Finally they arrived at the grand center chamber beneath the prismatic light of the white emerald, sunlight filtering through in every color. Light Gaia lumbered over them, awkwardly, playfully, with smiling eyes and no mouth. In some ways he looked so much like he did—mauve and white furry body, big ears and fluffy tail—that it brought a tear to Sonic's eye. But his tiny hands were great claws now, dotted with solid closed eyes at the palms, and where once he'd worn that green bauble around his neck, there was now a great eye, closed, watering. Sonic noticed two slits across Gaia's knees, and he wondered if they might be eyes, too.

Amy raced over to Light Gaia's leg and hugged it, wrapping her arms as far as she could, throwing herself. "Chip! I missed you! How have you been?"

Sonic could only watch as a great claw reached down and lifted Amy into the air. He felt his heart pounding, confused. Should he hug Chip too? Should he try to get Amy out of the creature's clutches. She looked the same from here, alien claw wrapped around her waist, as she had when Eggman held her hostage. But she seemed so happy, smiling, as the creature pressed her tightly against its furry chest. Then he sat her down, gently on her feet, like a child righting a doll and hoping it might stand. He knelt on his strange-slitted satyr's knes, holding out a claw. The depression where his mouth should have been didn't move, but still Sonic heard him speak.

"Why are you holding him?"

"He saved my life. What, no greeting?"

"I'm glad to see you, Sonic." The creature reached out with the back of his claw, running a knuckle the size of Sonic's own fist down the side of his face. "But I can't focus very well until my mission is complete. Not with the enemy right in front of me like this." He paused, and then added. "I can't afford to get distracted, like I did last time."

Sonic twitched, trying not to put that thought together.

"Sonic, we have to destroy Dark Gaia this time."

Sonic caught a glimpse of Shadow moving at the corner of his eye, but ignored it. "Chip," he said, walking forward himself, putting one arm around the creature's great leg as he cradled its tiny opposite in the other arm. "Eggman is stopped. I think I've gotten Dark Gaia around to my side. Why can't you guys just go back to sleep?"

Dark Gaia stirred in his arms, little claws becoming fist.

"He won't let go. Even semi-conscious, stripped of all that Gaia force, he'll still oppose me."

"I can't," moaned the little creature.

"And neither can I. It's who we are, this fight."

"I see," Sonic said with a frown, taking his arm off Light Gaia's leg. He put a hand on Light Gaia's neck, and shifted his arm to cover the other side. "Dark Gaia… I'm sorry I have to do this." He pressed with both hands, pushing hard, digging into the soft tissue with his fingertips while supporting the fairy's spine with his body.

Dark Gaia let out a horrible scream and begged, "No, please Sonic!" before he passed out with a shuddering breath. Sonic passed a hand under his nose, feeling for breath, to reassure himself that the poor thin was still alive.

"Now we bury both of you, and life goes on."

Light Gaia shook his great head. "It doesn't work that way. He's only defeated because all of his Gaia force is stuck outside—so is some of mine. As soon as he gets his Gaia Force back he'll attack again. Besides, I have work to do. To get rid of the night…"

Amy took a step forward, gesturing wildly. "You can't get rid of the night! People need it to sleep! We need night and day."

"But you can sleep during the day!" Chirped the giant in their minds. "And there are so many scary, bad things at night! And plants can't grow, and you can't see, and people hit stuff with their cars in the dark…"

"It's a part of life. Dark, Light, night and day. We need both to make it make sense!"

Light Gaia laughed. "Amy… My destiny is to bring Light to the Earth, to strip away the darkness." Light Gaia looked up, into the sun, spreading his arms wide. "Now that Eggman is gone, I just have to complete myself and take his ship back there."

Sonic shook his head. "Chip, think about this!"

"I'm sorry, Sonic. It will only hurt for a moment."

The mirrors shifted, and at the same moment, the burning intensified, like all the hope and life were being sucked out of him. Sonic collapsed, screaming, and gripped at nothing, trying to hold on to every mote of light, every bit of goodness and daytime. As the last ball of green light left him, he collapsed, world wavering around him.

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It happened so fast, Amy had barely had time to grab him by the shoulders and drag him out of Light Gaia's shadow and the intense beam of the moving array. A rush of green light flew out of Sonic and he screamed; another orb of the same color flooded in another corridor. After that came the red miasma that had followed them. The green soaked into Light Gaia; the red into Dark, who was now being carried out of the way by Knuckles.

The moving of the array intensified the sunlight, burning, and the emerald overhead exploded into a rainbow overtop Light Gaia. He let out out a great, alien roar as thin arms shot out of his sides, spraying red blood onto the glass dome. Amy looked back to see the slits on his knees, his chest, his hands, open into green eyes. A horn, swirled like Narwhal, erupted Light Gaia's head. After a moment his whole form seemed to solidify, to darken, and then faded into solid, white light, traced and swirled with green, dotted with chartreuse eyes.

"Behold, Perfect Light Gaia!" He announced himself. "I will shelter the earth for millions of years, bringing peace and justice, hope!"

Little Dark Gaia, in Knuckles' arms, closed his eyes.

"Chip!" Amy stopped, shouting. "How did you get that Gaia Force in here?"

"Oh, I had Shadow open an airlock for me? Why? Is it Dark Gaia you're worried about? I can take care of him, just leave him here with me; with this sunlight even all that Gaia Force won't help him." The green eyes turned up a little, as if to smile.

"You… can't honestly…" Sonic gasped, and yet the white creature, already far away, seemed to hear.

"Think it'll work? Come on, Sonic, we've done greater together. I'll take the train back to the ship, and go back to Earth, and I'll get rid of war and politics and all the bad stuff. And I'll get rid of all the evil people. And people will be so happy, they'll give me money and I can buy them all ice cream!"

"Chip," Knuckles scolded. "We just want life to go back to normal." Knuckles approached, handing off Dark Gaia to Tails.

"But normal is bad!" The white giant stomped, huffily. "You're always fighting, and people do bad things! Like unleash my brother ten years early just so they can use him for power."

There was a great crash, and Amy looked straight up, toward the sound. A Gaia temple, dripping with soil, was tapping on the glass, trying to break through.

"See? He's trying to stop me with those temples. Sonic, you should have let me have him!"

"I need to go check on Shadow," Amy stammered "Tails, Knuckles, please get Sonic out of the way of this grudge match. I just remembered something."

She ran, thinking of Pickle's last words to her.

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They ran.

Sonic clung tightly, hands digging into the burnt flesh of his Knuckles' shoulders and chest like knives. Far off, Knuckles could see a little ball of violet dodging orbs of white light from the creature Light Gaia had become. Its pairs of wings—six, eight—glistened in the amplified sunlight, glowing green. It reminded him of the way light glistened through Chaos.

They went the same way Amy had, and after a while they heard her shouting "Open open, open!" As they came upon the control room, full of computers and terminals, buttons and levers, an array of space suits and oxygen tanks along one wall, they felt a seal click shut behind them, and an awful roar shuddered through the floor.

Knuckles looked back; the little purple blur flew out of the central chamber, and Light Gaia clung desperately to walls with spread arms, pressing itself into place.

"No! That's not what I meant!" Amy shouted, swearing at the airlock with words Knuckles didn't even know existed.

They looked and saw her, weeping over the console, and unconscious Shadow by her side. Knuckles felt a strange energy and a shudder from the hedgehog on his back. Dark Gaia appeared beside them with a desperate gasp.

"Sonic! My hero!" Amy exclaimed.

"Help me get some rings." He stood, smoothing his spines. "These kids need a time out."

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Light Gaia lumbered down the corridor, teetering with the new weight. Tails could only watch from afar, safe within the furthest leg of the array, inside the control room. He pressed buttrons furiously on the console, trying to vent air to every section except this and the adjoining. Far off, racing through empty corridors he could see Shadow scavenging the array and its machinery for power rings. Knuckles was behind Tails, on the portable radio Eggman had left here, trying to prepare the colony for the potential arrival of Light Gaia if they failed.

Knuckles handed Tails a space suit, but as Tails put it on, he froze in place. The seven chaos emeralds all began to glow brightly, circling, leaving their towers to gather in vented corridor. With a flash, a golden star lifted itself into the airless sky.

"Chip, " came Sonic's voice over the PA system. "I don't know if you can hear me, given the vacuum."

"This moon was once a part of the earth you tread," came the reply, echoing in their heads.

"Chip. Light Gaia. Eternal daylight isn't healthy. People exist for both day and night, it'll mess up their bodies. People will get sick and go crazy."

"How can you want the night? Without sunlight? Without justice? Where things are hidden."

"You possess people, and make them do crazy things," Sonic recounted. "Like Shadow, trying to kill me."

"You aren't perfect, Sonic. I didn't want him to kill you but… you haven't been very responsible. I can't blame him for wanting justice."

The little golden light blazed in a way Tails didn't expect. And yet he could hear it coming, feel it coming too… He hurriedly put on the rest of his space suit, unsure of what was to come.

"I didn't ask you to save me, _Light Gaia,_" Sonic roared. "You did, and that's fine, but don't you dare go acting like I owe you something!" Sonic flew up into the creature's face, inches from his eyes. Tail was behind Sonic, and far too far away to see his face, but in his minds eye he could see the fury in Sonic's now-red eyes.

"I was distracted,"

"You made a choice, Chip. A choice there's nothing wrong with, but people weren't going to be happy with either of the choices you could have made. Let me die, or save the world." He paused a moment, and Tails could hear him breathing deep through the microphone in his mouthpiece. "You can make a choice now—back down and put the Earth how it was before Eggman started this stupid mess, or fight me for the chance to make your little screwed up Utopia.

"You would do this, Sonic? You'd be the villain, stopping Good?"

"Light is not Good, and Good is not wanting to rip my guts out by night and my heart out by day. I'm doing this for me, for my piece of mind and my life." Another breath. "You're great, Chip—one of the best friends I ever had, but only in small doses. All light or all dark will just destroy my way of life—our way of life. And if you think we won't fight for the world we want, you're mistaken."

The next thing Tails Knew, there was an impact, and he was being sucked out a hole as safety glass rained down. As he switched on the oxygen in his space suit, Sonic, a great golden hedgehog, grabbed him and flew him into an airlock, and closed the seal. Tails took care of the rest.

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"I can't believe you'd betray me like this! After all we've been through!"

Light Gaia threw another ball of Light at Sonic, who dodged nimbly in the vaccum, flying on currents of chaos. He could see Sonic adjust his mouthpiece, the source of his taunts; Light Gaia absently considered trying to rupture the tanks of oxygen on Sonic's back, but decided not to. Sonic deserved a chance to explain himself, after all.

"I want my mental health back!" the hedgehog screamed. "I want to sleep again and get all these ancient voices out of my head! So give it up!"

"Never! I should have known you'd betray me!" The ancient being felt tears slipping down his face, his stomach, his fingers and legs. "Dark Gaia had you from the start!"

Sonic flew up, close, into his face, face twisted up, eyes shining red. "Didn't you tell me I was too strong to lose myself? That you had nothing to do with why I was still me?"

"I… I was wrong."

Sonic sneered. "Yeah, you were wrong about who I am, not about my strength!" Suddenly, Sonic was hurtling toward him. He tried to bat him away, but missed, only to feel a terrible, searing piercing, a release of pressure, as part of his world went black. Light Gaia looked at his hand, watching green and white fluid leak out of the eye socket there with three of his remaining eyes.

"Sonic! You traitor!" He swatted Sonic through another glass enclosure, venting the air again, hoping to stop Shadow from finding all those rings. If he could just get Sonic to run out of rings, he wouldn't have to kill him…

To his surprise, Sonic didn't rise right away. He almost choked, thoughts of Sonic's lifeless body frightening him, when finally Sonic rose. Gone was the golden glow, though, and now there was a white streak across Sonic's head, a strange raspberry cloud about him that Light Gaia suspected only he could see.

"Dark Gaia?" Pondered the giant

"What do you think, Light Chip?" Answered the hedgehog, staring with blank, white eyes. "Your brother's got taste. Brought one of my darkest dreams to life."

Before Light could speak, another eye went black, this one on a knee.

"Sonic!"

And his other knee.

"I can't lose myself to Dark Gaia, so he can lend me all he wants! Works well, we're real compatible for some reason." Something in the back of Light's mind, something old and forgotten, noticed some discomfort in Sonic's taunt, but ignored it.

"Why are you on his side? This is his fault to begin with!"

"I'm on my side, Chip!" Sonic flew into his hand, piercing another eye.

He slapped at the little blue hedgehog, trying to rake him with a claw, but he slipped between Light Gaia's fingers like a shadow. Sonic flew into the left eye on his face, screaming, and he was too stunned to stop him from getting the right, stripping him of binocular vision. Light Gaia closed the eye over his heart tightly for a moment, in fear.

"What?"

"I like you, Chip, but I won't let you break my world. You can take another try in a couple million years."

Light Gaia sneered. "You'll just fail again! Just like before."

The edge went off Sonic's warped, dark voice; he spoke softly. "Life goes on, Chip. But today, it goes on my terms."

Sonic flew for Light's chest, and he covered his last eye protectively with cupped, bleeding, unseeing hands. There was a strange force, like the space around his hands being turned inside out and suddenly there were dark spines touching the soft side of his fingers. In the dim light of his own emissions, he could see Sonic fly straight toward him, frowning.

Light Gaia saw nothing else; his chest erupted in pain and he collapsed.

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He started to call the pieces of himself out of Sonic as Light Gaia fell. He started to reassemble, to reach out, spreading his violet darkness over the globe behind, below them.

He felt something wrap around his throat, pulling hard. He opened his eyes, all of them, the other five dotting the great horns that stuck off the side of his head, trying to see who was responsible, gasping fruitlessly.

"Oh no you don't, you little traitor!" She screeched, pulling harder. "We're sick of you both, and at least your big brother was honest!"

As the last bits of Gaia Force from Sonic flowed into him, as his five hidden eyes opened all the way, a red figure and yellow one appeared before him, the echidna and the fox. With extended fingers, one red and one white-gloved, he went down to five eyes, then three, then two, and a pink finger sunk itself into the last in the center of his face.

He supposed he couldn't blame them; they knew what they wanted. At least it wasn't Sonic doing the deed. With his last moment of consciousness, he thought, Remember me, Sonic. Carry my memory always.


	12. Epilogue: The Earth We Tread

Epilogue: The Earth We Tread

They flocked to the site, the little shrine beneath the windmill. Most of the flowers, the candies, the sundaes were left at the statue of the fluffy fairy. Quite a few offerings of chili dogs, soda, and power rings appeared beneath the hedgehog statute in the center, often turning up half-eaten in the fall. But every November a power ring and a sundae were left at the base of the imp statue , left by a Shamari-robed furry woman whose bracelets stood out. A round green gem on one side, and violet on the other.

She always got an ice cream afterward, and the ice cream man recognized her. He always called her ma'am a little louder than normal, with a little wink, and she always left him a pretty big tip.

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He kicked back in the hammock, sighing, book cracked in his lap. First, for a moment, he watched the clouds roll over the sky above the green hill, the checkered hillside, watching a memory of his child self race over the grass. Then he turned his attention to the book, watching sunlight cast green and purple dances on the page through his wrist guards. After a moment, he picked up the book and started to read. "Geez, Dr. Rose," he murmured to himself, chuckling. "Did you sign off on this monsterously small font?"

"Maybe you just need reading glasses," came a voice from above.

There was a rustling in the tree, and he looked up to see a red form above him. He glanced to his sides, locating two black suited men and a single GUN soldier. He looked back up at the echidna, who was climbing toward him.

"Bit early for a vacation, isn't it, Mr. President?"

Knuckles dropped to the ground next to him. "Not a vacation. Diplomatic thing, since you aren't answering your mail. Come to a banquet at the new White House. In your honor. I'll badger the chef until he makes chili dogs—I mean, if he won't be my Secretary of State he, can at least do that…"

"Knuckles, I don't do banquets." Sonic closed his book. "You know that."

"Will you do a picnic? Amy's got the grill and Shadow made cookies."

"Queen Cream on her way too?"

"She hates being called that, and I'm not sure it's going to last. My countrymen really don't like this idea of a constitutional monarchy. Oh, and before I forget, don't be surprised if Tails and Wave have something to announce. Those schemers are starting to remind me of him."

Sonic chuckled, looking back up at the sky. "I almost wish Eggman were here to share this."

"You might get that wish. It's not like there was enough left for us to find a body."

Sonic sat up. "Did you bring ice cream?"

"You're still making offerings to them, after all they did to you?"

Sonic smiled. "Hey, you can't talk about going back to someone who hurt you. And we'll eat most of it—they're the earth we tread, it's not like they need dessert."

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In the midst of the forest, as the shattered earth finally began to calm, they emerged from the crack, screaming. They flew into the mossy statue base, silenced.

After a moment they stood, flew into the air, arm in arm, the maroon creature pulling up on the violet one. They regarded the statue for a moment, chipped away, only the shoes carved into the base remaining.

"They gave him a statue?" asked the maroon one, flapping his green wings.

"There are two other ones here. What do you think, Tails and Knuckles, or us?" answered his blue-winged brother.

"Definitely us."

"So, off to Mazuri, find the emerald, pop it in?"

"Oh yeah, but on the way we have to see if there's still ice cream!"

The spiny one crossed his arms. "Light, it's been five million years. Do you really think anything will be the same?"

"It's ice cream! It's… why would people stop making it?"

"Because we can't be that lucky."

"Come on, it was this way!" Light Gaia flew off, through the forest. "I wonder if there's still a village here?"

"Someone will still be watching the shrine! I hope it's a pretty girl!" Dark Gaia grinned.

He scoffed, buzzing under a tree. "You and pretty girls!"

"You and food! Maybe this was a bad idea. We don't get along very well."

Dark Gaia laughed. "Oh, but did you see Sonic and Tails in Adabat? And they were best friends."

As they made their way into the tiny wooded village, they laughed their way into a little building with a picture of a meal painted on its hanging side.

"How are we going to pay for this anyway, Dark?"

"We're the reason all these people exist. We don't need to pay for it."

As they argued about payment, there was a little tug at both of their tails. The two ancients looked down.

A little brown-haired human girl was looking up at them, green eyes shining, holding up a bowl. Inside was a slick yellow mound, feathered on the edges, drowned in pink syrup.

"Honey, leave those things alone," shouted a blue-eyed woman, pulling her away. "You don't know where they've been."

"But mommy, they look just like the Chips in my story tablet…"

The two boys looked at each other smiling. After a moment they asked, "Was there anyone else in your story?"

As the mother dragged the little girl away, she called. "A big blue monster guy!"

"All those books he read, and he gets to be in one," commented Dark.

"Good thing neither of us won, isn't it?"

"Let's get some ice cream and get this done."


End file.
